<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Nexperia: Ground Zero of Tech&rsquo;s Cold War
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The chipmaker Nexperia, headquartered in the Netherlands, now sits at the center of the escalating U.S.&ndash;China trade war &mdash; one that&rsquo;s rippling across the global economy, hitting everything from car production to consumer electronics.
On Sept. 30, the Netherlands&rsquo; minister of economic affairs invoked the rarely used Goods Availability Act, a Cold War-era law allowing the state to take control of firms deemed vital to national security.
Officials cited &ldquo;serious governance shortcomings&rdquo; and the need to protect critical technology on European soil. The move effectively stripped Nexperia&rsquo;s Chinese owner, Wingtech Technology, of operational control &mdash; though production will continue under Dutch supervision. (Hold that thought.)
Nexperia produces 100 billion chips each year, supplying, for instance, around 35&ndash;40% of the automotive industry&rsquo;s discrete transistors: the inexpensive but essential parts that make cars, phones and appliances function.
A week after the takeover, Dutch courts further suspended Wingtech founder and Nexperia CEO Zhang Xuezheng (&ldquo;Wing&rdquo;), appointing a local chief in the interim.
The Hague framed the decision as an emergency measure to &ldquo;secure supply continuity&rdquo; and prevent the loss of &ldquo;vital technological expertise&rdquo; to foreign powers.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />While the Dutch cited domestic legal grounds, Washington clearly played an outsized role.
On Sept. 29, Washington detonated its new &ldquo;Affiliates Rule,&rdquo; extending U.S. export-control restrictions to any foreign subsidiary 50% owned by a listed Chinese entity.
It&rsquo;s a sweeping shift that potentially ropes in thousands of firms and tightens the noose on Nexperia&rsquo;s access to U.S. markets.
U.S. officials reportedly told The Hague that replacing Zhang could help Nexperia qualify for exemptions from these new rules.
China, shockingly enough, saw the move as political interference. State media called it an &ldquo;outright expropriation,&rdquo; while officials in Beijing accused the Netherlands of acting &ldquo;under direct U.S. pressure.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On Oct. 4, China&rsquo;s commerce ministry retaliated, barring exports of Nexperia products out of China. 
This was a critical hit because a large share of the company&rsquo;s output is assembled and tested in China before global shipment.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2yTwZMpSgupkEO3aVeq0L3/3be7ea9395087a9a7566f37be5174465/SI.png" alt="SI Tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Nexperia China, the local unit of the Dutch chipmaker, [told] its employees to follow orders from local management and ignore instructions from the Dutch head office, according to a letter issued to employees,&rdquo; says the South China Morning Post. 
At the same time, Beijing rolled out a fresh round of broad export controls covering rare earth minerals, magnets and battery components &mdash; with provisions that extend Chinese jurisdiction to some items produced abroad using Chinese tech.
In the last 48 hours, China has now agreed to urgent talks in Brussels with the European Union. The agreement followed a two-hour call between the EU&rsquo;s trade commissioner and China&rsquo;s commerce minister, during which Brussels pressed for &ldquo;immediate solutions&rdquo; to China&rsquo;s new licensing rules.
The EU argues restrictions threaten Europe&rsquo;s high-tech industries, while Beijing insists they&rsquo;re lawful and aimed at securing supply chains.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Although the low-end chips Nexperia produces might lack the sophistication of AI chips from Nvidia or AMD, they form the foundation of global electronics manufacturing.
A prolonged disruption could idle auto plants, inflate consumer prices and strain alliances in Europe. Simply put, you can&rsquo;t run an advanced economy without the cheap chips that make everything work.
What began as a seemingly technical trade dispute has become a test of how far the U.S. and EU are willing to go to contain China. But they might have irreparably overplayed their hand.
<ul>
<li>This just in: Volvo and Volkswagen warn of possible factory shutdowns in Europe, and Japan&rsquo;s auto association urges a diplomatic fix as Mercedes-Benz and GM monitor the fallout. Meanwhile, Nexperia&rsquo;s Dutch and Chinese divisions trade accusations over product quality and control.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;The damage China is capable of spans far beyond the automotive sector,&rdquo; says an article at Substack account Doomberg. &ldquo;A scan of market-cap rankings in the S&amp;P 500 reveals dozens of similar vulnerabilities: Apple, Qualcomm, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Honeywell, Caterpillar, Walt Disney &mdash; the tally of firms with high concentration risk in China is a long one.
&ldquo;[The] U.S. cannot decouple from China in the short- or even medium term,&rdquo; the article emphasizes, &ldquo;without collapsing its own economy and stock market.&rdquo; And the more Washington pressures its partners to &ldquo;decouple&rdquo; likewise, the more it risks fracturing the very supply chains the West depends on.
Ultimately, this episode isn&rsquo;t just about one Dutch chipmaker; it&rsquo;s about who controls the infrastructure of the global economy. In this fight, even the smallest chips could carry the biggest consequences.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Seasonality Says &ldquo;Game On!&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Oct. 20 is the OFFICIAL start of the best seasonality period for the stock market,&rdquo; notes pro trader Enrique Abeyta at the Paradigm Press app&rsquo;s Daily Feed feature.
&ldquo;Goldman Sachs points out this morning that from Oct. 20&ndash;Dec. 31, the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have averaged respective returns of +4.16% (since 1928) and +8.48% (since 1985). Game On!&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2HBpe5Cu2W4HYp786zpmnS/0425a08c0a416b727c0003ed729afa90/image__153_.png" alt="SPX Flow of Funds" width="540px" />
Enrique adds: &ldquo;Looking back over the last 25 years, there have been FOUR times when the S&amp;P 500 was at least +14% at this point of the year: 2013, 2019, 2021 and 2024.
&ldquo;The market was higher the rest of the year ALL four times,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;an average of +8.5%.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6CkH7hWcIZrfMBg3GwmVSf/cf9edb9b50effdcfa97514f141705541/image__158_.png" alt="chart2" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The Crude Ultimatum
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The standoff between the U.S. and India over Russian oil may finally ease, but not because of diplomacy. 
For months, President Trump has claimed that India was about to stop purchasing Russian crude, even though imports have remained steady &mdash; about 1.5&ndash;1.8 million barrels per day, according to Kpler. Those shipments have saved India billions and helped keep Moscow&rsquo;s war economy afloat.
Now new U.S. Treasury sanctions targeting Rosneft and Lukoil &mdash; the two biggest Russian oil producers &mdash; could force India&rsquo;s private and state-run refiners to reevaluate. Reliance Industries, India&rsquo;s biggest private refiner, for instance, says it&rsquo;s already &ldquo;recalibrating&rdquo; purchases.
While Washington frames this as pressure on Russia, the reality is blunter: The U.S. is using financial leverage to strong-arm India into line. For India, the discounts on Russian oil had already shrunk, so the economics may no longer justify the risk.
India may decide the better deal now is with Washington instead of Moscow. But it won&rsquo;t be out of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/indias-not-blinking">friendship.</a>
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> With that, the price of crude is up 5% to $61.40 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate. Other commodities, including precious metals are rallying: Gold&rsquo;s up 2.45% to $4,165.30 per ounce, and silver is up 2.70%, pennies under $48.
Tesla (TSLA) posted strong Q3 revenue of $28.1 billion yesterday afternoon, up about 12% year-over-year, helped by a surge in vehicle deliveries as buyers rushed to claim expiring U.S. EV tax credits.
However, the company&rsquo;s operating profit fell roughly 40% from a year ago amid higher costs, lower regulatory-credit income (money Tesla earns by selling carbon/emission credits to other automakers) and tariff headwinds.
Elon Musk used the earnings call to draw attention to self-driving &ldquo;robotaxi&rdquo; plans to expand testing without safety drivers into several metro areas by year-end.
At the time of writing, TSLA shares are down almost 2%. As for the overall stock market, the three major indexes are clawing back some of yesterday&rsquo;s losses. The Nasdaq is up 0.60% to 22,875 while the S&amp;P 500 and Dow are 0.35% and 0.10% &mdash; to 6,720 and 46,635 respectively.
Meanwhile, the crypto market is flashing green. Flagship crypto Bitcoin is up 1.60% to $109,880; Ethereum&rsquo;s up 1.40% to $3,865.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The &ldquo;Two-Speed Economy&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />U.S. auto loans are now flashing red: A study by VantageScore shows delinquencies have surged 50% over the past 15 years. 
According to Fitch Ratings, 6.43% of subprime auto borrowers were at least 60 days behind on payments in August &mdash; matching January&rsquo;s record and far above the 2008 crisis peak of 5.04%. When Fitch began tracking the data in 1993, for instance, that figure was just 0.12%.
Last year, 1.73 million vehicles were repossessed. That&rsquo;s the highest number since 2009, says Cox Automotive. And America&rsquo;s total auto debt has climbed to $1.66 trillion, roughly double what it was a decade ago.
Much of that debt has been sliced into asset-backed securities, or ABS, and sold to investors. That structure &mdash; eerily similar to the subprime mortgage market before 2008 &mdash; is now showing strain.
Wall Street is already on edge after the collapses of subprime lender Tricolor and car-parts supplier First Brands in September. &ldquo;When you see one cockroach, there&rsquo;s probably more,&rdquo; warned JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
Goldman Sachs President John Waldron adds: &ldquo;We may, we probably will, have some defaults &mdash; and it&rsquo;s not going to be pretty.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Waldron cautions that the credit boom has created a &ldquo;two-speed economy,&rdquo; where corporate borrowers and households on the lower rungs are beginning to buckle under the same pressures. 
The pain is showing up first in consumers&rsquo; garages. The average new car in America now costs more than $50,000, up 35% since 2019. And monthly payments average $761 for new vehicles and $570 for used ones, according to Edmunds.
&ldquo;Consumers are buying the same car they owned before, but their payments are $300 more a month,&rdquo; said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds&rsquo; head of insights.
Debt counselors are overwhelmed. The nonprofit American Consumer Credit Counseling (ACCC) reports 53,900 calls this year&mdash; up 63% from 2019. &ldquo;People are using their credit cards for basic living expenses,&rdquo; says Kenneth Mohammed of ACCC.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1YrTrq8WnyPT3dJtkp1ur9/ca87237fcfa26043534268d0ee4cf1e6/Kurt.png" alt="kurt tweet" width="540px" />
ACCC&rsquo;s average client debt has jumped 60% in five years to $30,000, and many clients earn $75,000 or more annually &mdash; evidence the crisis has climbed the income ladder.
Meanwhile, about 30% of traded-in car loans are now underwater, with buyers rolling almost $7,000 in old debt into new loans.
&ldquo;That should send off alarm bells,&rdquo; warns Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody&rsquo;s Analytics. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re seeing all this stress while everyone still has a job &mdash; so what happens if people start losing them?&rdquo;
Waldron is more straightforward: Private credit and bank lending &ldquo;belong to the same system,&rdquo; he says, and if defaults continue to cascade, &ldquo;all participants will be affected.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />&ldquo;Where We&rsquo;re Going, We Don&rsquo;t Need Roads&rdquo; 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Aerospace startup Inversion has an intrepid new pitch: Drop emergency supplies from space &mdash; anywhere on Earth, in under an hour. 
The company&rsquo;s plan centers on its Arc orbital reentry vehicle, a reusable capsule that can carry about 500 pounds of cargo.
The Arc sits parked in low-Earth orbit until needed. When called upon, it detaches from its service module, blazes through the atmosphere at Mach 20-plus and glides to a landing by steerable parachute.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1PiLnBSVU2lZai9Z05vavM/a1743b7513c808c52762952847e8fcbb/inversion.png" alt="inversion" width="540px" />

Source: Inversion &ldquo;They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.&rdquo;
Unlike traditional supply chains &mdash; hampered by distance, politics or bad infrastructure &mdash; the Arc could reach remote or hostile areas that no plane or truck could.
&ldquo;With massive cross-range to cover great distances during reentry, and high maneuverability throughout every phase of flight, Arc delivers a transportation capability that has never existed before,&rdquo; says Justin Fiaschetti, Inversion&rsquo;s co-founder and CEO.
Inversion imagines thousands of these orbiting couriers forming a global logistics web for military, humanitarian and disaster-relief operations.
While everyone else is figuring out drone delivery&hellip; Inversion just decided to skip a step?
Take care, reader! Join us tomorrow for a fresh 5 Bullets&hellip; 
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets is a daily e-letter covering the economy and the markets, reaching 120,000 paying subscribers of the renowned financial publishing firm Paradigm Press.

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

The chipmaker Nexperia, headquartered in the Netherlands, now sits at the center of the escalating U.S.–China trade war. 

Ground Zero of Tech’s Cold War

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Private Equity&rsquo;s JV With the Pentagon
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Call it &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; Phase III.
Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards turned heads last winter with a bold proposition &mdash; that the new Trump 47 administration was keen to tap into the vast mineral wealth under federal lands west of the Mississippi River. Potential value of this bounty: $150 trillion.
But even Jim was caught off-guard when the Birthright agenda moved into Phase II last summer &mdash; in which the federal government started taking ownership stakes in publicly traded companies.
The most notable name in this regard was the rare earth producer MP Materials. Many readers of Paradigm publications collected huge gains as a consequence. (One outlier collected 1,400%. &ldquo;Best trade/investment of my four-year career,&rdquo; this individual said.)

[There are still ample profit opportunities to be had from Phase II. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2488469">Jim has a name and ticker symbol for your consideration, FREE when you watch this three-minute video</a>.]

Now comes what looks like Phase III. The Financial Times calls it &ldquo;an unprecedented effort to enlist some of Wall Street&rsquo;s biggest investors directly in U.S. national security.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;We are in a hole that we are not going to be able to dig out of without creative solutions coming in from outside parties,&rdquo; says U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll.
The &ldquo;hole&rdquo; in question is the Army&rsquo;s desire to upgrade its aging infrastructure. Cost over the next 10 years: $150 billion. Available funds from the federal budget: $15 billion.
And so last week, Driscoll along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with bigwigs from private equity giants like Apollo, Carlyle, KKR and Cerberus. From the FT story&hellip;
<blockquote>Driscoll told the Financial Times he gathered the private investors to say, &ldquo;&lsquo;Hey, here are all the assets we have in our arsenals and our depots that we are underutilizing&hellip; What are those types of deals where we can work with you and invite you in?&rsquo;&rdquo;</blockquote>
<blockquote>The Army secretary, the service&rsquo;s top civilian official, said he asked the groups to draw up &ldquo;clever financing models or unique financing models&rdquo; to help meet the Army&rsquo;s infrastructure needs&hellip;</blockquote>
<blockquote>Driscoll added the projects could include data centers and rare earth processing facilities, and could involve the federal government swapping land for computer processing power or output from rare earth processing.</blockquote>
<blockquote>He described the proposal to the group as, &ldquo;Instead of paying us with cash for the land, you pay us in compute&rdquo;.</blockquote>
Sounds complicated. But the execs on hand seem to have an open mind, even if they don&rsquo;t want to be quoted by name. &ldquo;It was pretty clear Bessent and Driscoll are serious about working with private capital,&rdquo; says one.
It doesn&rsquo;t hurt that Driscoll comes to the task with an investment banking background &mdash; and he has the cachet of being Vice President Vance&rsquo;s classmate at Yale Law.
We&rsquo;ll keep tabs on the progress of this initiative &mdash; and whether it serves up any investment opportunities in publicly traded companies &mdash; in the months ahead.

In the meantime, Birthright Phase II is still in full swing, abounding with profit possibilities. Have you seen Jim Rickards&rsquo; revised and updated video? It includes a free stock pick he believes &ldquo;has market-beating potential over the next 12 months.&rdquo;
And no, you won&rsquo;t have to watch for an hour or longer to see the pick. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2488469">Click here and you&rsquo;ll be in the know after only three minutes</a>.

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The Beatings Will Continue Until&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The thrashing of the precious metals isn&rsquo;t over yet.
When it was all over yesterday, gold had registered its worst one-day loss in 12 years &mdash; a 5.7% spill. Checking our screens this morning, it&rsquo;s down another 1.1% at $4,078.
That&rsquo;s the bad news. The good news is that gold hasn&rsquo;t lost its grip on the $4,000 level.
The fact that $4,000 gold was a record high only two weeks ago illustrates the extent to which gold was &ldquo;overbought&rdquo; and due for a pullback.
&ldquo;Both gold and silver were completely overcooked, and speculators took their chance,&rdquo; colleague Sean Ring <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/the-pyrrhic-rally">writes</a> in today&rsquo;s Rude Awakening as he surveys the most likely reasons behind the big drop.
Sean says sentiment could turn on a dime as the major gold miners start reporting their earnings &mdash; with the big dog Newmont (NEM) set to report tomorrow after the closing bell.
In the meantime, the HUI index of mining stocks is down another 1.6% on the day at 581. And silver has shed another 31 cents to $48.31.
Not much to say about digital nondollar assets &mdash; Bitcoin is mired beneath $110,000 and Ethereum has sunk below $3,900.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As for stocks, the major U.S. indexes are all in the red after a &ldquo;meh&rdquo; day yesterday.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 is down nearly three-quarters of a percent to 6,689. The Dow is down about a half percent while the Nasdaq is down more than 1%.
Wall Street&rsquo;s thirst for economic data amid the &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; will be slaked on Friday when the Bureau of Labor Statistics cobbles together the official inflation numbers for September, about 10 days behind schedule.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The Long, Long Refill
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Oil prices are getting cheap enough for the Trump administration to start refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve &mdash; if only a teacup at a time.
&ldquo;The Trump administration is dipping its toe &mdash; barely &mdash; into refilling the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), announcing plans to purchase 1 million barrels of crude for delivery in December and January,&rdquo; reports Julianne Geiger at the OilPrice website. &ldquo;The move, while symbolically significant, amounts to little more than a rounding error in a reserve that once held 700 million barrels.&rdquo;
As we chronicled at the time, the Biden administration drained the SPR to an unprecedented degree throughout 2022 to keep a lid on gasoline prices ahead of that year&rsquo;s midterm elections. Several of Biden&rsquo;s predecessors tinkered with the SPR for political objectives &mdash; but never like this.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4Cw3zhpjsLT8lS0Rod09cr/b623b848f79affccf43ac48b267011f3/SPR_Chart_102225.png" alt="the biden bleed" width="540px" />
As you can see, the Biden team started sloooowwwwly refilling the SPR in mid-2023 and the Trump 47 team has continued that snail&rsquo;s pace. Even so, the SPR is no more plentiful now than it was in 1984.
But it seems the pace is about to pick up with this new buy. As Geiger reports, &ldquo;The Department of Energy will use $171 million from President Trump&rsquo;s new tax and spending law to fund the purchase, issuing a solicitation for crude to be delivered to the Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana. Bids are due by Oct. 28, with contracts tied to spot market prices.&rdquo;
Still, Energy Secretary Chris Wright is on record saying that getting back to pre-2022 levels will take years and as much as $20 billion.
In the meantime, U.S. oil prices have rallied over a buck today after the weekly inventory numbers from the Energy Department (which are still coming out, shutdown notwithstanding.) A barrel of West Texas Intermediate fetches $58.32.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Today&rsquo;s giggle tees up our mailbag section&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3UG4Z7T8eCqksBLrURDvOY/75e6e4ec67b64546da565e1efd02a9ad/Amazon-servers.png" alt="amazon servers" width="450px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Crypto and the End of the World
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;WOW, what a way to start off the week. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/done-deal-huge-birthright-decision">Monday&rsquo;s 5</a> was packed with all sorts of stuff and I&rsquo;ve just got to comment,&rdquo; writes one of our regulars.
&ldquo;Jim Rickards&rsquo; gold predictions just got a boost from all places silver price fixer Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan. What??? Anyway, to jump on you kids and memes, I&rsquo;m riding his Strategic Intelligence writer&rsquo;s gold/silver miner&rsquo;s recommendations to the MOON! Thanks, guys!
&ldquo;This gives me a great segue to Amazon&rsquo;s AWS web outage. You&rsquo;ve tried and tried to teach this old dog about crypto, quite eloquently by James Altucher et al., BUT I can&rsquo;t for the life of me see the value of investing in a &lsquo;computer program.&rsquo; Which as far as I can tell crypto is based on&hellip; a program? I would have literally s**t a brick if I were to wake up and find my crypto wallet, err, gone. I know this time they will get recovered but still&hellip;
&ldquo;Last comment on the reader commenting on last week&rsquo;s <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/doubling-down-on-armageddon">nuke war article</a>. Yes, I would rather be vaporized like he stated should some of these dummies finally hit the button. On the other hand, if my family and I were to survive such stupidity, at least we would have some gold and silver to barter with, rather than a crypto wallet that may never come back.
&ldquo;Just sayin&rsquo;.
&ldquo;Love the 5.&rdquo;
Dave responds: So this is interesting to think about. If power and internet are both out &mdash; which can happen in many scenarios short of nuclear war! &mdash; what good is your crypto?
I guess it&rsquo;s theoretically possible to transfer crypto from one cold wallet to another if you have 1) a backup power source and 2) a mesh network that can somehow reach an internet node from a distance, even if it doesn&rsquo;t have a lot of throughput. Admittedly that&rsquo;s a lot of ifs.
Hmmm&hellip; In that sense, an investment in crypto is ultimately an act of faith that civilization will continue functioning on one level or another!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

money-pentagon

Even Jim Rickards was caught off-guard when the American Birthright agenda moved into Phase II. Now comes what looks like Phase III.

Private Equity’s JV With the Pentagon

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Rare Earth Resolution
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Donald Trump has a handshake deal to start weaning the United States off imports of Chinese rare earths. Sort of. OK, just barely.
As you might recall, rare earths became a flashpoint in the U.S.-China trade standoff earlier this month &mdash; when Beijing imposed sweeping new export controls on rare earth elements. REEs are used in everything from your smartphone to fighter jets.
China has a near-lock on the world REE market, the result of a strategy going back more than 30 years. As China&rsquo;s late-20th century leader Deng Xiaoping put it in 1992, &ldquo;The Middle East has its oil, China has rare earths.&rdquo;
Yesterday, Australia&rsquo;s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came calling on the White House. He and Trump announced their two governments would commit $8.5 billion to expand Australia&rsquo;s capacity to mine and process rare earths.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1YwAsDaLHYwW1cvJt2CCLj/5afc43af36243f4a863996336ee49e0c/TheWhiteHouse.png" alt="the white house tweet" width="450px" />
Australia has a substantial mining sector. It also holds at least 5% of the world&rsquo;s rare-earth deposits and accounts for about 8% of global production.
As with many of these announcements, Trump&rsquo;s boasts are big &mdash; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have so much critical minerals and rare earths that you won&rsquo;t know what to do with them&rdquo; &mdash; but the details are thin.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The problem is that much of Australia&rsquo;s rare earth production ends up being processed and turned into useful materials&hellip; in China.
For instance&hellip; the big Australian producer is Lynas Rare Earths &mdash; a company that&rsquo;s been on the radar of Paradigm&rsquo;s natural-resources authority Byron King for many years.
About a quarter of its output is processed in China. And most of the rest is processed in Malaysia &mdash; a country whose government is on very friendly terms with China.
Investment implications, you ask? During his appearance with Albanese, Trump swaggered about how deals like these could collapse the prices of rare earths &mdash; which would not be good for producers of rare earths.
But that&rsquo;s potentially years down the road. Paradigm readers who&rsquo;ve thrived this year from American rare-earth names like MP Materials and USA Rare Earth have little to worry about at the moment.
That said, &ldquo;While I do think the stocks could go higher in the near term, the upside is absolutely not unlimited,&rdquo; says Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta. &ldquo;In five years, I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised to see many of them lower than they are today.&rdquo;

[Editor&rsquo;s note: If you&rsquo;re looking for an opportunity to leverage Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; agenda in your portfolio right now, Jim Rickards directs your attention to his top Alaskan mining play. &ldquo;This is a massive opportunity,&rdquo; Jim says &mdash; &ldquo;both for American mineral production and for individual investors who know exactly where to park their cash before mining begins.&rdquo;
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2488062">In a newly updated presentation</a>, Jim gives away the name and ticker symbol of the company for FREE. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2488062">Follow this link and get ready to take notes, because you&rsquo;ll get the critical details within just three minutes</a>.]

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Precious Metals Pounded
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Friday&rsquo;s precious metals beatdown was bad. Today&rsquo;s is much worse.
At midmorning, gold was down $225 to $4,130. Silver was down nearly four bucks to $48.34. The HUI index of mining stocks was down 8%, barely above the 600 level.
But this is not the end of the precious metals rally. It&rsquo;s not even the beginning of the end.
On the Paradigm Press mobile app, colleague Sean Ring shared a chart he spied on Substack, showing gold&rsquo;s performance during its magnificent 2000&ndash;2011 rally.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/LFBZagLgWenJQPjMWhNqG/ff68ea2335e7a753d9e9a5e85b37d379/Gold.jpg" alt="gold" width="540px" />
&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re feeling sick to your stomach watching the metals and miners get taken out behind the woodshed, it&rsquo;s good to review the last bull market,&rdquo; says Sean.
&ldquo;Gold got caned all the way up to a new record. This sucks, but keep your eyes on the future.&rdquo;
Word. As Jim Rickards reminded his Strategic Intelligence readers only yesterday, none of the factors propelling gold higher in recent years have changed: &ldquo;Central banks are still net buyers; gold output is still flat with no major discoveries on the horizon, and interest from new players is growing stronger by the day.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, the major U.S. stock indexes are treading water after booking gains yesterday.
At last check, the S&amp;P 500 was pancake-flat at 6,736. The Nasdaq is down about a quarter-percent while the Dow is up a half percent. Earnings season is in full swing, although most of the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; names won&rsquo;t report until next week. In the meantime, Amazon is up 2.2% on the day now that the AWS outage is over.
&ldquo;On the surface, it looks as if this bull market will never take a break. When in fact, it already has,&rdquo; Greg Guenthner writes his Trading Desk readers.
&ldquo;More stocks on the NYSE are trading below their respective 50-day moving averages than not. Plus, half of the tech stocks in the S&amp;P 500 are churning below their intermediate-term averages. The tech-led rally off the April lows has cooled. It&rsquo;s simply not visible at the cap-weighted index level.
&ldquo;The averages will inevitably shed 10% at some point, maybe more, but it doesn&rsquo;t necessarily have to be anytime soon.&rdquo;
Elsewhere, crypto is losing ground compared with yesterday &mdash; Bitcoin still holding the line on $110,000 but Ethereum surrendering the $4,000 level.
Crude continues to sink toward new lows last seen in early May, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate now $57.20.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />America&rsquo;s Tax System: How Does It Compare?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Compared with most of the world&rsquo;s other major economies, the U.S. tax system is&hellip; squarely in the middle of the pack.
The nonpartisan Tax Foundation is out with its 2025 International Tax Competitiveness Index &mdash; comparing the tax burden of all 38 nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
&ldquo;A well-structured tax code is easy for taxpayers to comply with and can promote economic development while raising sufficient revenue for a government&rsquo;s priorities,&rdquo; say the researchers. &ldquo;In contrast, poorly structured tax systems can be costly, distort economic decision-making and harm domestic economies.&rdquo;
Using that yardstick, the researchers say the most competitive tax systems in the OECD are two of the Baltic republics that once belonged to the Soviet Union &mdash; Estonia with a perfect score of 100 and Latvia with a score of 92.8.
The least competitive? Italy at 50.3 and France at 45.8.
The United States scores 72.5, or 15th overall among the 38 OECD countries.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7mKLMeoRNIzj8jzwA9d3Gt/69ef78c4c215da67f548de9b2f5c0248/tax-system.png" alt="tax system" width="540px" />
When it comes to specific kinds of taxes, America ranks&hellip;
<ul>
<li>17 in individual taxes</li>
<li>4 in consumption taxes (no &ldquo;value-added tax&rdquo; for us, thank you very much)</li>
<li>9 in corporate taxes</li>
<li>30 in property taxes</li>
<li>35 in &ldquo;cross-border tax rules&rdquo; (U.S. companies are taxed on income earned abroad, and the rules are more complicated than elsewhere.)</li>
</ul>
America&rsquo;s overall No. 15 ranking is up one spot from last year. The researchers say the biggest plus is a change that turns up in the &ldquo;One Big Beautiful Bill Act&rdquo; passed over the summer: &ldquo;The U.S. reinstated full expensing for plants and equipment and extended the policy to selected industrial buildings and structures.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Today&rsquo;s installment of Shutdown Theater&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5IOw69N3GJPyO0cIrc3dHr/e825cc3dedea0c96a9af6fd6e0e606fb/congress-shutdown.png" alt="congress shutdown" width="450px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />&ldquo;The War Rages On&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Don&rsquo;t get the wrong idea from yesterday&rsquo;s mailbag: The reaction to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/doubling-down-on-armageddon">last Wednesday&rsquo;s &ldquo;Avoidable Armageddon&rdquo; issue</a> wasn&rsquo;t 100% positive.
&ldquo;Glad that you are aware of the &lsquo;rest of the story&rsquo; concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis,&rdquo; a reader writes &mdash; teeing up the inevitable but that I&rsquo;ve come to expect after doing this daily e-letter thing for 15 years.
&ldquo;One most important point, however, differentiates the then and the now. You equate that crisis then to now between Ukraine and Russia, but don't mention the one, obvious difference.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Russia is now actually invading another sovereign country whereas there was no invasion back then. Then it was just an existential threat. Now this is a unilateral real military offensive threat in addition to the nuclear threat.&nbsp;
&ldquo;This changes the dynamic, because standing down no longer solves the problem. Taking your missiles home no longer creates a peace. The war rages on.&rdquo;
Dave responds: On the contrary, the presence of NATO missile bases on Russia&rsquo;s doorstep &mdash; Poland and Romania &mdash; was one Moscow&rsquo;s pain points in the years running up to the February 2022 invasion.
In late 2021, Vladimir Putin laid out two main demands to avert all-out war &mdash; a guarantee Ukraine would never join NATO and a guarantee Ukraine would never host NATO missile batteries that could be used to attack Russia. Joe Biden rejected the first demand and blew off the other one without even addressing it.
The war would be over very quickly without U.S. support for Ukraine. Why Donald Trump refused to wash his hands of the war upon returning to office is one of the great mysteries of the age. He blustered about his negotiating prowess and ending the war in a day. Unable to do so, he now careens back and forth between berating Ukraine&rsquo;s leader Zelenskyy one day and haranguing Putin the next.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As deadline approaches, a White House official is saying there are &ldquo;no plans&rdquo; for another Trump-Putin meeting &ldquo;in the immediate future&rdquo; &mdash; days after Trump said the two would meet in Budapest.
The scuttlebutt is that talks in recent days between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov didn&rsquo;t net the results that Trump desired &mdash; whatever they were.
How much longer before Trump reverts to threats of &ldquo;bad things happening&rdquo; if Putin doesn&rsquo;t start &ldquo;playing ball&rdquo;? Or resumes his threats to send Tomahawks to Ukraine?
On that score, the BBC had an excellent infographic the other day&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2JOyiciVOp2kxjLwEUDxzf/fdf1c8740f83bf4b52d9c3004c0de46f/Russian-military.jpg" alt="russian military" width="450px" />
One way or another, Moscow is dead-set on achieving its ultimate objective &mdash; ensuring Ukraine&rsquo;s army can never again be leveraged by Western leaders to threaten Russia.
The only question is how Moscow gets there &mdash; and how recklessly Western leaders will act in the interim.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

Trump-Albanese

Donald Trump has a handshake deal to start weaning the United States off imports of Chinese rare earths. Sort of.

Trump’s $8.5B Bet on Australia

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Without AI, the Economy Is Toast
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Two leading economists, working independently, have reached the same conclusion: AI spending is the only thing propping up the U.S. economy in 2025.
&ldquo;AI has kept the economy out of a recession.&rdquo; declares James Egelhof, chief U.S. economist with the French banking giant BNP Paribas.
All the money corporate America is pouring into data centers and high-end chips? &ldquo;The AI boom has convinced the broader business community that a robust expansion and productivity surge lies just over the horizon,&rdquo; Egelhof told a roundtable of reporters this week.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Separately, Harvard economist Jason Furman says that without billions of corporate dollars pouring into data centers, U.S. GDP would have grown a measly 0.1% annualized during the first half of 2025 &mdash; and not the 1.6% reported by the Commerce Department.
Here&rsquo;s how Furman arrives at that figure.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2mVjYeaxchjUky8FhXHzRs/27e80ec1aacf4b05858da8fe85d05e72/Jason.png" alt="jason tweet" width="540px" />
Furman is an Establishment hack &mdash; he ran the White House Council of Economic Advisers during Barack Obama&rsquo;s second term &mdash; but he&rsquo;s probably onto something here.
Consider the following figures:
<ul>
<li>According to Goldman Sachs, AI &ldquo;hyperscalers&rdquo; like Amazon, Microsoft and Google now account for more than a quarter of all capital spending among S&amp;P 500 companies &mdash; growing at a blistering 75% annual pace</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>According to Renaissance Macro, the dollar value contributed to GDP growth by the buildout of datacenters now exceeds that of consumer spending.</li>
</ul>
As Fortune points out, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s remarkable considering consumer spending is two-thirds of GDP.&rdquo;
Or maybe it&rsquo;s not so remarkable in light of what Emily spotlighted in yesterday&rsquo;s edition: Auto loan and credit card delinquencies are back to levels seen during and after the 2008 financial crisis. Below the top 10% of income earners &mdash; folks who&rsquo;ve also booked big AI gains in their portfolios &mdash; the mighty American consumer is on his heels. (Maybe you&rsquo;ve noticed that among your friends and neighbors? Or your adult children?)
As Eglehof suggested a moment ago, there&rsquo;s nothing out there to arrest this trend for the moment &mdash; especially now that the Federal Reserve has embarked on a new interest rate-cutting cycle.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> How to profit from the next round of AI spending? Well, the 800-pound gorilla of AI companies, Nvidia, is hosting its annual GTC event next week in Washington, D.C.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s where developers, industry leaders and innovators come together to discuss all of the latest discoveries in the artificial intelligence industry,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s AI authority James Altucher. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s where Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tends to make the company&rsquo;s biggest announcements.&rdquo;
James expects a major announcement next Tuesday at noon EDT. And based on his own proprietary AI algorithm, he expects that announcement to unleash a profit opportunity similar to those in the past that have generated peak gains of 2,350%... 5,133%... and even 7,100% in only six days.
Subscribers to Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha already know what to do in advance of Huang&rsquo;s presentation. If you&rsquo;re not among them, <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2489681">you owe it to yourself to click here and check out what James has to say right away</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Inflation, Social Security, Record Highs
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The big market story today is the release of the September inflation numbers, &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; notwithstanding.
The bad news &mdash; for Main Street, anyway &mdash; is that the official inflation rate ticked up from 2.9% to 3% &mdash; the highest since January.
The good news &mdash; for Wall Street, certainly &mdash; is that the number clocked in lower than expected. Lower-than-expected inflation likely means the Federal Reserve will continue cutting short-term interest rates at its next meeting five days from now. And probably again at the meeting after that in mid-December.
Today&rsquo;s release of the consumer price index was nine days late. Already the White House is warning that as long as the shutdown continues, there won&rsquo;t be an October inflation report next month.
As we&rsquo;ve pointed out for a couple of weeks now, the only reason the Bureau of Labor Statistics cobbled together the September report is that the Social Security Administration needs those numbers to set next year&rsquo;s cost-of-living adjustment for retirees.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> And with today&rsquo;s release, the Social Security COLA for 2026 will be 2.8%.
For the average recipient that translates to a $56-a-month jump to $2,064. As we say every year, don&rsquo;t spend it all in one place.
Worse, that jump will be offset for many seniors by rising premiums for Medicare Part B. The 2026 increase is still in flux &mdash; but over the summer the Medicare program&rsquo;s trustees estimated the standard premium would jump from $185 to $206.50.
Meanwhile, if you&rsquo;re still in the workforce, the threshold at which Social Security taxes are no longer collected on your income rises from $176,100 to $184,500 &mdash; a 4.8% jump.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As hinted at above, the market reaction to the lower-than-expected inflation numbers is euphoric.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 has sailed nearly 1% higher to a record 6,800. The gains in the Dow and the Nasdaq are even more impressive.
For once this week, there&rsquo;s no meaningful action in the precious metals: Gold is nearly flat from yesterday at $4,126, while silver is down slightly to $48.69. The mining industry&rsquo;s big dog, Newmont, is down 4% despite reporting gangbuster quarterly numbers after the close yesterday&hellip; and the action in NEM is dragging down the HUI index of mining stocks nearly 1%.
The crypto market is little moved today despite news that JPMorgan will allow its institutional clients to use Bitcoin and Ether as collateral for loans by the end of this year. Bitcoin sits a hair over $110,000 while Ethereum is just over $3,900.
Crude continues to bounce off five-month lows, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate set to end the week over $62 &mdash; up substantially from less than $57 on Monday.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />&ldquo;A Trillion Here, a Trillion There&hellip;&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For the record&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5p3EhrRYbvchc6Ysj1jzrN/945b738af0f023e81851887d34e0128d/Clint.png" alt="clint tweet" width="540px" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6hGGzk6WaygkYreicLPYW4/1f78edac187d2226465abac598073cfa/Spencer-10-24.png" alt="spencer tweet" width="540px" />
The national debt hit $37 trillion in August. It hit $38 trillion this week. That&rsquo;s the fastest trillion-dollar accumulation of debt outside the pandemic.
And people wonder why the inflation rate keeps inching higher this year.
A few days ago, the Treasury issued Uncle Sam&rsquo;s final income-and-outgo numbers for fiscal year 2025 &mdash; which ended Sept. 30. Here&rsquo;s how they compare with the previous year&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4SK4ndsbr6SSwQftIKAts2/bb0b72d6b8677c813e25b92fe0a78f3d/TreasuryTableAnnual.png" alt="table" width="540px" />
Yes, the annual budget deficit shrank by 2.8% compared with a year earlier &mdash; largely thanks to tariff revenue.
But spending grew 3.9% despite the much-ballyhooed efforts of DOGE. Zeroing in on the eight full months of the Trump administration, spending did fall by a microscopic amount &mdash; but it would have risen substantially absent some accounting gimmickry with the student loan program.
And get this: Net interest on the debt in fiscal 2025 totaled $971 billion.
As gold expert Don Durrett tweeted this week, &ldquo;We are borrowing $2T annually to pay $1T in interest. Do the math. It doesn&rsquo;t work. The clock is ticking.&rdquo;
Sure is. The annual budget deficit works out to 5.9% of GDP. It&rsquo;s a slight improvement from the previous year&rsquo;s 6.4% &mdash; but it&rsquo;s still unprecedented for an era when there&rsquo;s no world war, no global financial crisis and no pandemic. At this rate, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent&rsquo;s goal of reducing the deficit to 3% of GDP by the end of 2028 looks like a pipe dream.
<blockquote>➢ Reminder: Under the &ldquo;One Big Beautiful Bill Act,&rdquo; the debt ceiling kicks in again once the national debt reaches $41.1 trillion. We&rsquo;re only $3.1 trillion away now. There will be another debt-ceiling drama in Washington before the end of Trump&rsquo;s term.</blockquote>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Inspired Advertising
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />On the theory that there&rsquo;s no such thing as bad publicity&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7awphylufgdeeCobUpbigD/d978b3ac53b4e41769c24c76b37ea723/Bocker.png" alt="brocker" width="350px" />
That&rsquo;s an Instagram post by the German firm B&ouml;cker &mdash; making the most of the fact that one of its lifts was used for the brazen break-in at the Louvre in Paris last weekend. In only eight minutes, the thieves made off with $102 million in jewelry.
&ldquo;When you&rsquo;re in a hurry, the B&ouml;cker Agilo carries your heavy treasures,&rdquo; it says.
B&ouml;cker&rsquo;s managing director Alexander B&ouml;cker tells the AFP newswire that he recognized his company&rsquo;s machine from the news coverage. Given that no one was hurt, he figured it was &ldquo;an opportunity for us to use the most famous and most visited museum in the world to get a little attention for our company."
And it seems the reaction is overwhelmingly favorable. &ldquo;Your messaging takes the crown,&rdquo; says one commenter.
As B&ouml;cker tells Reuters, &ldquo;We have even had feedback from abroad saying, &lsquo;Hey, you Germans do have a sense of humor after all.&rsquo;&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Parting Shot(s)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As long as we have the Louvre on the brain, let&rsquo;s wrap it up with some quality memeage&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5eFeMecTIROKVlgUt1sHoA/dc7cbc18120aa28d1ef3f0f62ef7223c/Lourve1.png" alt="Lourve" width="400px" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1VlkooiISXOLTHdwklFf2c/64de65794fcc4b8a6b6b69acc1e2180e/Louvre.png" alt="Lourve" width="400px" />
Have a good weekend,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

economy-ai

Two leading economists, working independently, have reached the same conclusion: AI spending is the only thing propping up the U.S. economy in 2025.

Without AI, the Economy Is Toast

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The &ldquo;Birthright&rdquo; Hinges on This
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />On the one hand, it&rsquo;s just another case of the Trump administration reversing a Biden administration initiative. On the other hand, this reversal could change everything.
At stake is the fate of 245 million acres of federal land supervised by the Bureau of Land Management. For perspective, that&rsquo;s an amount of land equal to the size of Texas and New Mexico combined.
As The New York Times frames it, the Trump administration aims &ldquo;to repeal a Biden-era rule that sought to protect millions of acres of public lands from the twin threats of climate change and industrial development.&rdquo;
Rescinding the rule &ldquo;would prioritize the use of public lands for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, timber production and livestock grazing.&rdquo;
As Interior Secretary Doug Burgum sees it, rescinding the rule &ldquo;protects our American way of life and gives our communities a voice in the land that they depend on.
&ldquo;The previous administration&rsquo;s Public Lands Rule had the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of acres of multiple-use land &mdash; preventing energy and mineral production, timber management, grazing and recreation across the West.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Rescinding the rule lies at the heart of the &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; agenda.
That&rsquo;s the name our own Jim Rickards gives to the Trump administration&rsquo;s plan to exploit the vast mineral bounty on federally owned land, a trove valued as high as $150 trillion.
Here&rsquo;s what makes this rule change such a huge deal: The Biden administration&rsquo;s move in April 2024 made conservation a priority equal with that of development. That was a first in the nearly 80-year history of the Bureau of Land Management.
&ldquo;The Biden administration unlawfully placed conservation above all else,&rdquo; says a statement from Rich Nolan, president of the National Mining Association.
&ldquo;This new rule reinstates the balance of federal land use intended by Congress, ensuring that our vast resources can meet today&rsquo;s soaring energy needs and become the secure mineral supply chains for American industry.&rdquo;
Rescinding the Biden-era rule is the clearest sign yet that the &ldquo;Birthright&rdquo; agenda is moving into Phase II &mdash; opening up a vast new array of profit opportunities that Jim Rickards is tracking for his readers.

In fact, Jim is so enthused by the possibilities that over the weekend he released a revised and updated video &mdash; complete with a free stock pick he believes &ldquo;has market-beating potential over the next 12 months.&rdquo; You won&rsquo;t even have to watch until the end to see the pick: <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2487664">Click here and all will be revealed within only three minutes</a>.

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The Epstein Shutdown, Continued
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In a desperate reach for &ldquo;reasons&rdquo; behind every little market move, CNBC tells us: &ldquo;Stocks Rise to Start the Week on Hopes Strong Earnings Are Ahead, Shutdown Will End.&rdquo;
Huh?
Earnings season is ramping up, yes, but the only &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; company reporting its numbers this week is Tesla, the smallest of the bunch. Most of them won&rsquo;t issue their quarterly figures until next week.
That said, Apple got an upgrade this morning from the analysts at Loop Capital Markets. They say AAPL is a buy because iPhone demand is picking up. That&rsquo;s enough to boost Apple&rsquo;s share price by nearly 4% on the day to all-time highs.
As for the &ldquo;partial government shutdown,&rdquo; the only indication it will be over soon is a CNBC interview with National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a shot that this week, things will come together, and very quickly. The moderate Democrats will move forward and get us an open government, at which point we could negotiate whatever policies they want to negotiate with regular order.&rdquo;
In the meantime, the House remains in recess. House Speaker Mike Johnson has designated this week as a &ldquo;district work period.&rdquo;
The House has been out of session since Sept. 19 &mdash; more than a week before the shutdown began &mdash; so that Johnson <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/keep-your-crypto-composure">can avert a vote on the Jeffrey Epstein files</a>.
Before the shutdown, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) was only one vote shy of gathering enough signatures for a &ldquo;discharge petition&rdquo; that would force a vote on full release of the Epstein files in the government&rsquo;s possession.
He&rsquo;ll have enough signatures once the House returns to session and a new representative who won a special election last month is sworn in. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re afraid of me signing and being the 218th signer to the Epstein petition,&rdquo; says Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona).
And so the &ldquo;Epstein shutdown&rdquo; is now in its 20th day, a length eclipsed only by the shutdowns of 2018&ndash;19 and 1995.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Whatever the reasons, real or imagined, the U.S. stock market is starting off the week strong.
The S&amp;P 500 is up 1% at last check, resting at 6,730. That&rsquo;s less than 25 points away from the all-time high on Oct. 8. The Oct. 10 market freakout over Donald Trump&rsquo;s threats of 100% tariffs on China &mdash; which he now concedes are &ldquo;not sustainable&rdquo; &mdash; is but a distant memory.
Remarkably, shares of Amazon are up three-quarters of a percent despite a massive failure of the company&rsquo;s AWS web-hosting services. The outages have affected everything from Amazon itself to Venmo, Snapchat and the major airlines. And they&rsquo;re not over yet: Several services that came back online during the morning, like Apple Music, went down again.
Exactly what the problem is, Amazon is not saying: &ldquo;We continue to investigate the root cause for the network connectivity issues that are impacting AWS services such as DynamoDB, SQS and Amazon Connect in the US-EAST-1 Region,&rdquo; says the AWS status page. &ldquo;We have identified that the issue originated from within the EC2 internal network. We continue to investigate and identify mitigations.&rdquo;
[You might be experiencing intermittent interruptions to the Paradigm Press website and app. Or not. Our email &ldquo;sends&rdquo; appear to be unaffected.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Gold Rebounds, Dimon Won&rsquo;t Rule out $10K
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Can the pullback in gold really be over after only one trading day?
As we check our screens, the Midas metal&rsquo;s spot price is up nearly $96 on the day at $4,343 &mdash; exceeding last Thursday&rsquo;s record. Friday&rsquo;s beatdown? It&rsquo;s as if it didn&rsquo;t happen.
That said, silver still has work to do. It&rsquo;s up 57 cents as we write at $52.43. But that&rsquo;s still two bucks off of last Thursday&rsquo;s record. Likewise for the mining stocks; the HUI index is up 2.7% to 654, well below Thursday&rsquo;s record close at 687.
<blockquote> ➢ Elsewhere in the commodity complex, oil starts the week down another 37 cents at $57.16 &mdash; another five-month low. As for digital nondollar assets, they&rsquo;re staging a weak recovery from last week&rsquo;s sell-off &mdash; Bitcoin at $111,456 and Ethereum a hair over $4,000.</blockquote>
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It&rsquo;s as if Satan just endorsed virtue. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon won&rsquo;t rule out $10,000 gold.
&ldquo;This is one of the few times in my life it&rsquo;s semi-rational to have some in your portfolio,&rdquo; he said last week at a conference held by Fortune magazine. (In other news, Fortune is still in business. Once part of the Time-Life empire, it&rsquo;s been owned by a Thai billionaire since 2018.)
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a gold buyer &mdash; it costs 4% to own it,&rdquo; he allowed &mdash; referring to the storage fees for large amounts of metal. &ldquo;But it could easily go to $5,000 or $10,000 in environments like this.&rdquo;
Fortune&rsquo;s write-up of Dimon&rsquo;s appearance did not elaborate on what he meant by &ldquo;environments like this.&rdquo; A lack of confidence in the dollar as the globe&rsquo;s reserve currency? A lack of confidence in &ldquo;safe&rdquo; U.S. Treasuries because of Uncle Sam&rsquo;s continuing debt binge? Something else? Let your imagination run wild&hellip;
We mention this item only because Dimon is the bete noire of gold bugs &mdash; widely blamed for harnessing the power of the country&rsquo;s biggest bank to help suppress the silver price, among other sins. If he won&rsquo;t rule out $10K gold, <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-path-to-usd10k-gold">our own Jim Rickards&rsquo; outlook</a> starts to seem downright&hellip; tame?
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />About the Fort Knox Audit&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As the Trump 47 presidency enters its 10th month today, a timely reminder&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/E0fqF9pgcXeHxdk7VT2lh/fddf0f3e4590a7bdbfd95cf03beaea18/GoldTelegraph.png" alt="Gold Telegrpah" width="540px" />
That said, we never held out much hope it would happen in the first place &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/fort-knox-fake-out">for reasons we spelled out back in June</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Avoidable Armageddon
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to say that &lsquo;you are doing it wrong,&rsquo; but in the event of nuclear war, you want you and your family to be painlessly vaporized in the attack,&rdquo; a reader writes after last Wednesday&rsquo;s edition.
&ldquo;Survivors will live in a hellish place where life will once again be &lsquo;brutal and short.&rsquo;
&ldquo;It is really hard to fathom the idiocy of driving a country like Russia to desperation (and therefore reaching for the nuclear bombs). But we haven&rsquo;t had smart people running our country for generations now, so I guess we shouldn&rsquo;t be surprised.&nbsp;
&ldquo;It sure seems like the folks in the 1950s and 1960s at least knew enough about the realities of war to try to avoid it. Thanks for all you do!&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Great article, Dave, on the prospects for nuclear destruction,&rdquo; says another correspondent.
&ldquo;How funny it is the number of people, young and old, who are destroyed due to the ego of one or two individuals.
&ldquo;Why Trump just can't say &lsquo;OK, we will encourage Ukraine NOT to become a NATO nation&rsquo; is due to his ego. Not sure any of the &lsquo;tools&rsquo; that work for him has ever suggested this is actually how you can end the war in Ukraine in one day.
&ldquo;I know I am oversimplifying this, but damn.
&ldquo;Love your stuff.&rdquo;
Dave responds: We can only hope that Trump&rsquo;s periodic references to his uncle John Trump, an MIT professor, are true.
&ldquo;Nuclear is so powerful. My uncle explained that to me many, many years ago,&rdquo; he said in a speech once. On another occasion, Trump said his uncle warned him about &ldquo;things that are happening that could be potentially so bad for the world in terms of weaponry.&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s not much to hang onto, but it&rsquo;s&hellip; something?
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

On one hand, it’s just another case of the Trump administration reversing a Biden administration initiative. 

Done Deal (Huge “Birthright” Decision) 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Government Creep: In Real-Time
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Britain quietly launched its digital ID scheme today, using 1.8 million veterans as the first test group. The new &ldquo;smartphone-based veteran card&rdquo; is the pilot for a national system meant to replace physical IDs &mdash; part of a plan Labour leader Keir Starmer wants to make standard for all adults in the U.K.
In fact, by 2027, the government plans to move most official credentials &mdash; from driver&rsquo;s licences to background checks &mdash; into the Gov.uk One Login app.
Officials say it&rsquo;s about &ldquo;reducing red tape,&rdquo; but critics warn it&rsquo;s the first step toward a centralized ID system Britain has resisted since Tony Blair&rsquo;s administration. And still resisting&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1KqCWIzvzoDqfsIIHp4jnn/1dfd65b4de2ad88fea7d74f3633b8350/Rupert.png" alt="rupert tweet" width="540px" />
Plus, a 2.9 million-signature petition opposes the rollout as civil liberties advocates warn it could morph into a digital tracking tool. Meanwhile, many veterans are bristling at being used as &ldquo;guinea pigs&rdquo; for this scheme.
&ldquo;But the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, this week complained of &lsquo;scaremongering,&rsquo;&rdquo; The Guardian reports, &ldquo;and said digital IDs would not be used to track citizens and &lsquo;there will be no pooling of people&rsquo;s private information into a single, central dataset.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Although government ministers insist the program is voluntary, a digital ID will be mandatory to prove the &ldquo;right to work&rdquo; by the end of the current parliament (no later than 2029).
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Privacy is on the ropes,&rdquo; warns Paradigm&rsquo;s geopolitics authority Jim Rickards. &ldquo;And governments are working [to] make sure that we have no privacy at all.&rdquo; 
What once sounded like dystopian fiction, Jim says, is now public policy, unfolding step by step under the banner of convenience, security or crisis management.
Jim points to one glaring Trojan horse &mdash; central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Governments claim they will make payments faster and cheaper, but &ldquo;that&rsquo;s just a facade for the real purpose,&rdquo; he says.
Once every transaction is logged in a centralized system, &ldquo;they will know how you spend your money &mdash; what books you buy, what charities you support, what candidates you donate to.&rdquo; With AI monitoring spending patterns, Jim says it becomes easy to &ldquo;profile you and determine if you are an &lsquo;enemy of the people.&rsquo;&rdquo;
He also points to the Quiet Skies program, which &ldquo;was supposed to be an anti-terrorist watch list.&rdquo; But under Biden&rsquo;s administration, Jim says, &ldquo;it morphed into a way to punish political enemies by putting them on watch lists even though there was no indication of any terrorist activity.&rdquo;
And then there&rsquo;s the abuse of state of emergency declarations. &ldquo;Some emergencies are real,&rdquo; Jim concedes, &ldquo;but others are invented to give politicians an excuse to intervene in markets.&rdquo; Declaring an &ldquo;energy emergency&rdquo; could allow officials to impose price controls &mdash; something that&rsquo;s on the agenda in New Jersey, for instance.
&ldquo;Emergencies are being declared,&rdquo; Jim cautions, &ldquo;to give unwarranted power to politicians.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Together, these systems form what Jim calls &ldquo;the architecture of total surveillance&rdquo; &mdash; one that can easily be turned against dissenters or anyone who resists official narratives.
While Jim stresses that escaping the digital dragnet completely &ldquo;is not possible,&rdquo; you can make yourself harder to track:
<ul>
<li>Use cash. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one way out of digital tracking&rdquo;</li>
<li>Use Faraday sacks. They block GPS and cell signals from your phone and laptop</li>
<li>Drive old cars. &ldquo;New cars are loaded with digital signaling devices,&rdquo; Jim notes</li>
<li>Avoid interstate highways. They&rsquo;re &ldquo;lined with toll cameras and surveillance checkpoints&rdquo;</li>
<li>Reduce license plate exposure. Cover or remove your front plate where legal</li>
<li>Reject cookies, limit apps and skip ride-sharing. The fewer digital footprints, the better.</li>
</ul>
Each step, Jim says, &ldquo;makes it harder for the AI [surveillance] systems to complete your profile&hellip;
&ldquo;This is not a new state of affairs,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;Governments have always wanted to control the opinions of their citizens and the availability of information to the public. Total surveillance at all times seems to be the short-term goal,&rdquo; he observes. &ldquo;Enslavement to the government&rsquo;s wishes is the end game.
&ldquo;The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is intended to prevent this abuse but the fact that the amendment was considered necessary shows that the censorship impulse was not far below the surface even in the early days of the United States.
&ldquo;The key for individuals is to explore ways to preserve privacy and avoid the government net,&rdquo; Jim concludes. &ldquo;That may be one of the most important crisis survival techniques in the years ahead.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Bank Crises Are Like &ldquo;Cockroaches&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />After the collapses of private auto parts companies <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/wall-streets-check-engine-light">First Brands Group</a> and Tricolor Holdings, banks are now admitting losses tied to loan fraud. 
Regional bank Zions Bancorp disclosed it will take a $50 million charge-off linked to two commercial loans that now appear fraudulent. Meanwhile, Western Alliance Bancorp said it has filed suit against a borrower it accuses of fraud.
On the surface, tens of millions may sound small in banking terms; yet shares of regional banks plunged across the board on Thursday. As one risk analyst puts it, investors in financial stocks &ldquo;sell first and ask questions later.&rdquo;
Even Jamie Dimon &mdash; the billionaire CEO of the notoriously bulletproof JPMorgan Chase &mdash; felt the need to sound the alarm. &ldquo;When you see one cockroach, there are probably more,&rdquo; he warns after revealing JPM&rsquo;s $170 million hit tied to Tricolor Holdings.
This all feels familiar, no? It echoes the unraveling of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried&rsquo;s crypto empire that collapsed in November 2022. Within months, a string of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/did-you-say-the-bank-crisis-is-over">California-based banks</a> &mdash; Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic &mdash; fell in rapid succession between March&ndash;May 2023.
While a full-blown crisis isn&rsquo;t guaranteed, even a small shock can ripple through markets.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The Case for More Gold Gains
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Gold&rsquo;s historic rally has caught even seasoned investors off guard, but the precious metal may still have plenty of room to run.
According to Evy Hambro, global head of Thematic and Sector Investing at BlackRock, gold&rsquo;s rise above $4,200 per ounce doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s overpriced &mdash; and mining equities might offer even more upside.
&ldquo;Are gold companies earning a lot of money right now? Absolutely,&rdquo; Hambro says. &ldquo;The margins are as fantastic as I've ever seen in my career.&rdquo; He acknowledges that miners may be &ldquo;overearning&rdquo; in the short term, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean gold itself is overvalued.
To determine that, Hambro urges investors to look at gold&rsquo;s purchasing power over time. &ldquo;You can buy more low-value goods with gold today than you could in the past, but you can buy less Manhattan property,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;So gold has preserved its purchasing power for some items, not for all.&rdquo;
Hambro stresses that momentum matters&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The trend is probably your friend in this environment,&rdquo; he says, noting that currency skepticism could keep driving gold higher. If the world is truly &ldquo;repricing paper currency relative to real assets,&rdquo; Hambro believes the metal could still &ldquo;go a lot higher.&rdquo;
What excites Hambro most is miners&rsquo; profitability. &ldquo;At these prices, these companies are earning enormous margins &mdash; absolutely fabulous margins,&rdquo; he says. Despite these stocks doubling this year, Hambro insists they&rsquo;re still undervalued.
That&rsquo;s because many analysts still model long-term gold prices at $2,200&ndash;2,400 per ounce, &ldquo;a 50% discount to today&rsquo;s futures curve.&rdquo; If prices stay elevated for another year or two, Hambro adds, &ldquo;these companies will way overearn relative to expectations.&rdquo;
To Hambro, this is more than a passing boom. &ldquo;What we&rsquo;re in right now is probably bigger than a cycle,&rdquo; he summarizes. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been overprinting paper currency since the 1950s. Eventually, you reach a tipping point &mdash; and maybe we&rsquo;re seeing it now in real assets.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Gold is pulling back today &mdash; down 1.15% to $4,256.50 per ounce. At the same time, the price of silver pulled back bigly: down 4.85% to $50.75.
But Mr. Market seems to be shaking off any bank-crisis concerns. The three major U.S. stock indexes are in the green with the DJIA up almost 200 points to 46,145. The S&amp;P 500 (+0.30%) and tech-loving Nasdaq (+0.20%) are up to 6,645 and 22,610 respectively.
Oil, meanwhile, is struggling to stay in green territory. Crude is up 0.20% to $57.55 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate.
Finally, the crypto market continues to slide. Bitcoin&rsquo;s down 0.90% to $107,175, and Ethereum is down 0.85% to $3,835.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />INTC: Forged in Its Foundry
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;This week, Intel (INTC) achieved what I&rsquo;ve been waiting for: Their 18A manufacturing process entered high-volume production at Fab 52 in Arizona,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s science-and-tech investor Ray Blanco.
&ldquo;Intel&rsquo;s 18A node represents 1.8 nanometer-class technology &mdash; the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing happening on American soil,&rdquo; he says.
&ldquo;It's the first process node in production anywhere that combines gate-all-around transistors with backside power delivery.
&ldquo;These aren't incremental improvements. They're architectural changes that enable better performance and power efficiency.
&ldquo;Panther Lake, Intel's first processor built on 18A, is shipping in Q4 2025,&rdquo; adds Ray. &ldquo;This chip will power next year's AI PCs.
&ldquo;Even better, Intel manufactures 70% of the components in-house rather than outsourcing to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSM). That significantly improves margins if execution holds.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The foundry business remains the question mark. Intel needs external customers to justify the massive capital expenditure required for these advanced fabs,&rdquo; says Ray.
&ldquo;Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN) are confirmed customers. Talks with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) continue. Nvidia has bought a stake, as has the U.S. government and SoftBank, the majority owner of ARM Holdings.
&ldquo;But external revenue remains minimal so far. Intel's CFO admits &lsquo;committed volume is not significant right now&rsquo; for 18A,&rdquo; Ray says.
&ldquo;Intel could struggle if the foundry business doesn't materialize. But the company is starting to show us that it can execute on advanced manufacturing.
&ldquo;The bottom line: The 18A node hitting volume production, after years of delays on previous nodes, suggests the technical turnaround is finally materializing.
&ldquo;As for the foundry business model,&rdquo; Ray emphasizes, &ldquo;it depends on winning customers.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Day 17 of Government Shutdown
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Is this the bipartisan solution America&rsquo;s been waiting for? 
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2qSGWSC0l7P548g3GuIZLQ/fa22e99f08d6fd88bba24996ea5dfca4/AgoristNexus.png" alt="agorist nexus" width="540px" />
Hard to say if this would count as discretionary spending or public service&hellip;
Take care, reader, and enjoy the weekend!
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

creeps

“Privacy is on the ropes,” warns Jim Rickards. But you can make yourself harder to surveil… 

Government Creeps

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Bailout Buddy System
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> When Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent approved U.S. support for Argentina&rsquo;s collapsing peso, headlines framed it as confidence in &ldquo;market reform.&rdquo; But when you line up the actual events, the story gets much murkier.
Argentina&rsquo;s crisis has been building all year &mdash; inflation above 30%, foreign reserves nearly gone and an IMF rescue from April that didn&rsquo;t stick.
By early September, local elections in Buenos Aires province dealt President Javier Milei&rsquo;s party a blow. Investors panicked, the peso plunged and capital fled the country. But that didn&rsquo;t stop Milei from partying like it was 1989&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6Fe4B6LL6ECmdhMKYYpOGZ/51390aef60d4e52ff18bcc6dd42d94b7/Tweet.png" alt="tweet" width="450px" />

Everything about that hairdo just clicked into place&hellip;
Days later &mdash; on Oct. 9 &mdash; Bessent&rsquo;s Treasury announced a $20 billion currency-swap deal with Argentina.
Using the Exchange Stabilization Fund, Washington provided dollar liquidity in exchange for pesos, hoping to halt the free fall. It marked the first time in decades that the U.S. directly intervened in an emerging-market currency.
Behind the scenes, Economy Minister Luis &ldquo;Toto&rdquo; Caputo &mdash; a former Wall Street trader who spent years at JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank before running Argentina&rsquo;s central bank &mdash; helped broker the deal. Without him, the $20 billion rescue likely wouldn&rsquo;t have happened.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> That same week, reports surfaced that hedge-fund billionaire Rob Citrone &mdash; founder of Discovery Capital and Bessent&rsquo;s longtime acquaintance from their Soros Fund Management days &mdash; had been buying Argentine debt at deep discounts.
Several media outlets report Citrone privately urged officials to support Milei&rsquo;s reform agenda. There&rsquo;s no proof of a direct quid pro quo, but the timing certainly raises eyebrows: Citrone was adding to his positions just before the Treasury stepped in.
Bessent defends the move as &ldquo;strategic,&rdquo; saying it would stabilize markets and counter Chinese influence in Latin America. Yet Argentina isn&rsquo;t even among America&rsquo;s top-25 trading partners. The deal instead exposes U.S. taxpayers to currency risk with little visible gain.
Critics from both parties have piled on. Sen. Chuck Grassley calls it a betrayal of &ldquo;America First,&rdquo; while Democrats accuse the administration of finding billions for foreign bailouts even as U.S. families battle inflation.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Then on Tuesday, President Trump welcomed Milei to the White House &mdash; a symbolic show of support with strings attached.
&ldquo;The election is coming up very soon,&rdquo; Trump told reporters. &ldquo;Our approvals are somewhat subject to who wins.&rdquo; If Milei&rsquo;s party loses the midterms, he added, &ldquo;we won&rsquo;t waste our time.&rdquo;
Markets wobbled as investors absorbed Trump&rsquo;s message. What began as a financial rescue now looks like political leverage.
In the end, this isn&rsquo;t about reform or diplomacy. It&rsquo;s about who takes the risk and who gets rescued. In other words, taxpayers carry the downside. Insiders enjoy the upside.
Bill Bonner calls it the &ldquo;corruption cycle&rdquo; &mdash; the slide from rule of law to &ldquo;rule of men,&rdquo; where the well-connected grow richer by steering the system. The Caputo-Bessent-Citrone chain fits that pattern perfectly.
And while Argentina may seem distant, the precedent isn&rsquo;t. Every time Washington props up a foreign currency with your tax dollars, it normalizes bailouts.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Is the Rally Running a Fever?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The stock market wobbled last week after Trump threatened steep new tariffs on China. Stocks fell hard Friday &mdash; the biggest one-day drop since April&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; sell-off &mdash; before bouncing back when Trump downplayed tension via social media.
Paradigm&rsquo;s trading pro Enrique Abeyta says investors shouldn&rsquo;t obsess over every tweet, but the episode raises a deeper question: &ldquo;If one post can rattle the market, how strong is this rally really?&rdquo;
He points to several cracks beneath the surface. First, the McClellan Summation Index &mdash; a measure of market breadth &mdash; has been drifting lower even as major indexes set new highs. &ldquo;That means fewer stocks are doing the heavy lifting,&rdquo; Enrique says.
Quality stocks are also lagging. Enrique notes that the S&amp;P Quality ETF has underperformed the broader market over the past month &mdash; a sign investors are speculating instead of following fundamentals.
Among small-cap stocks, only 57% of Russell 2000 companies are profitable. &ldquo;Since April&rsquo;s lows,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;the profitable group has gained 22%, while the unprofitable stocks have surged 53%.&rdquo;
Enrique&rsquo;s takeaway: &ldquo;This kind of narrow, speculative rally can keep going for a while,&rdquo; Enrique says, &ldquo;but it rarely ends well.&rdquo;
He&rsquo;s not sounding the alarm yet &mdash; just a warning. &ldquo;Stay disciplined,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;In the end, it&rsquo;s not about how much you make, it&rsquo;s how much you keep.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Taking a look at stocks today, the three major indexes are in the green. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is faring best (+0.40%) to 22,775. At the same time, the S&amp;P 500 is up 0.25% to 6,685 while the Big Board is up 0.15% to 46,315.
As for commodities, crude is up 0.30% to $58.45 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metals continue rocking: Gold is up 2% to $4,285.20 per ounce, and silver is up 3.70% to $53.25.
And we have a couple economic numbers to report today&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Mid-Atlantic manufacturing: The closely watched Philly Fed index plunged to -12.8 in October &mdash; a collapse of 36 points from September&rsquo;s 23.2 &mdash; and seriously below the consensus forecast of 8.6. Any reading below zero signals contraction in the region; it&rsquo;s the lowest reading since April</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Homebuilder sentiment: The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo index rose to 37 in October, up from 32 in September and beating forecasts for 33. All three components &mdash; current single-family sales, future sales expectations and prospective buyer traffic &mdash; improved. Still, readings remain below the 50 mark that signals optimism. NAHB Chair Buddy Hughes says mortgage rates slipping toward 6.3% have helped, but &ldquo;most home buyers are still on the sidelines, waiting for rates to move lower.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Finally, at the time of writing, crypto is cratering. Bitcoin&rsquo;s down 1.20%, just under $110K, and Ethereum&rsquo;s down 0.45%, just under $4K.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />&ldquo;True Supply Chain Security&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />At the recent London Metal Exchange seminar, Trafigura CEO Richard Holtum delivered a provocative thesis: &ldquo;Mining is not critical. Processing is.&rdquo;
Holtum&rsquo;s warning was aimed squarely at the West. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re fighting the wrong battle,&rdquo; he says, arguing that governments obsess over new mining permits while China and Indonesia dominate the midstream &mdash; the refining and processing steps that turn ore into usable metals.
&ldquo;True supply chain security,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;comes from processing investment, not just extraction.&rdquo;
The numbers bear him out. According to the International Energy Agency, China refines more than 65% of global copper, over 70% of lithium and more than 90% of rare earth elements. Those percentages reveal real leverage &mdash; in the smelters, chemical plants and cathode facilities that sit between mine and market.
Meanwhile, rival energy-and-commodties company Mercuria has shown where profits are flowing. Its metals division has booked about $300 million in 2025 profits, driven by copper arbitrage trades, opportunistic imports of refined cathodes into U.S. ports and a 150-person expansion under former Trafigura executive Kostas Bintas.
Holtum&rsquo;s message reframes the critical-minerals debate: Owning the mine is no longer enough. Without its own refineries, smelters and chemical plants, the West&rsquo;s so-called &ldquo;energy independence&rdquo; could end up powered by someone else&rsquo;s infrastructure.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" /> The Flat Tax Revolution
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />From 2021&ndash;2025, more states switched to a &ldquo;one-rate fits all&rdquo; income tax system than in the entire prior century of tax reform.
Between July 2021 and June 2025, eight states enacted laws to move from graduated income taxes toward flat rates, with six already in effect and two (Kansas and Ohio) scheduled for future rollout.
Arizona led the charge in July 2021. Iowa followed in March 2022; Mississippi and Georgia in April 2022; Idaho in September 2022; Louisiana in December 2024; and Kansas and Ohio adopted their laws in April and June 2025, respectively.
Ohio&rsquo;s flat rate of 2.75% begins January 2026, while Kansas will phase in a 4% rate when revenue and reserve thresholds are met.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2JeVuUxNrvnoYfQci7ObjR/867159b80dfb0e38db8d6afc32c20b64/Screenshot_2025-10-16_at_10.09.48%C3%A2__AM.png" alt="map" width="540px" />

<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/flat-tax-state-income-tax-reform">Click to view interactive map</a>
Currently, 14 states use a single rate on individual income, and nine states levy no individual income tax on wage income at all. Most states still use multiple tax brackets.
But proponents argue flat taxes bring revenue clarity, discourage politically driven bracket tinkering and even match people&rsquo;s intuitive sense of (more) fair taxation.
&ldquo;A major element of the tax reform debate is the desire for a more simple tax system,&rdquo; the Tax Foundation finds, &ldquo;and the reduced compliance costs that will accompany greater simplicity.&rdquo;
Here&rsquo;s hoping these eight states dare others to abandon complexity and embrace transparency.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Peak Foliage, Peak Frustration
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Every year, excited visitors descend on Vermont&rsquo;s countryside, brimming with hopes of witnessing the riotous colors of maples and birches. 
At first, it seemed harmless. Then the selfie-obsessed influencers rolled in &mdash; blocking narrow roads, wandering into driveways, clogging scenic spots &mdash; and suddenly it felt like leaf season ushered in traffic jams, not serenity.
In response, residents in some towns have voted to close scenic backroads during peak weeks &mdash; rural roads that often lead to farms already being overrun. The message: Cars stay out, viewers stay back.
One Vermont artisan is even making cheeky action figures, mocking influencers and donating part of his proceeds to help pay sheriff&rsquo;s deputies to staff road closures.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/B4wwiVYMiBgfXpwAt9CHD/12098cdfdeffe86ba7b7414fd9f2954c/VermontCollectibles.png" width="450px" />

Source: suspiciousduckvt.com
But here&rsquo;s the thing: New England&rsquo;s economy depends on this beautiful chaos. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that foliage tourism generates about $8 billion in the region each year. So even as locals gripe about clogged dirt roads and trespassers, tourist dollars keep small towns alive.
It&rsquo;s a fine line. Close too many roads and you risk choking off the very lifeblood of local businesses. Leave them open and you&rsquo;ll be waving traffic around your mailbox until Thanksgiving.
This fall? Leaf peepers might get the breathtaking views &mdash; but locals hope they get the message, too.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets
P.S. Congratulations to James Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha subscribers who bagged a 562% gain yesterday on a quantum computing play &mdash; on top of a 587% win booked last week! That&rsquo;s two 500%-plus hits in just nine days, thanks to James&rsquo; Blue Spike signal nailing that setup&hellip; You&rsquo;ll be among the first to know when James&rsquo; service opens to new subscribers.

exchange

Using the Exchange Stabilization Fund, Washington provided dollar liquidity in exchange for Argentine pesos. But there are so many strings attached… 

The Bailout Buddy System

Missile

It pains your editor to inform you that we’re hurtling into a new Cuban Missile Crisis — almost 63 years to the day after the last one began.

Doubling Down on Armageddon

Trump-gold

The gold price sits at a record high… and the new boogeyman for Western elites is China.

The Day Trump Confiscates Gold

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />DOD: $1B &ldquo;Birthright&rdquo; Metals Spree
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Judging by two headlines this morning, Birthright Phase II is moving into high gear.
&ldquo;The Pentagon has sought to procure up to $1 billion worth of critical minerals,&rdquo; says the Financial Times &mdash; &ldquo;as part of a global stockpiling spree to counter Chinese dominance of the metals that are essential to defense manufacturers.&rdquo;
There was no grand announcement. Rather, the details emerged in dribs and drabs over the last few months in obscure filings by a Pentagon arm called the Defense Logistics Agency.
The DLA keeps a stockpile of strategic minerals, much like the Department of Energy maintains the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Its assets in 2023 totaled $1.3 billion.
From the jump last January, the Trump 47 administration has been keen to beef up this stockpile. As Paradigm&rsquo;s own Jim Rickards sees it, the scheme is part and parcel of the &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; agenda &mdash; in which the White House seeks to exploit the vast mineral bounty on federally owned land, a trove valued as high as $150 trillion.
Among the filings unearthed by the Financial Times &mdash; a potential plan to acquire as much as $245 million of antimony from U.S. Antimony Corp. (UAMY).
Antimony is a grayish metal used in everything from flame retardants to lead-acid batteries. The Pentagon values it for everything from explosives to night-vision goggles. The news has sent UAMY shares shooting 15% higher this morning.
The rare-earth names are also soaring once more after the FT&rsquo;s scoop: USA Rare Earth (USAR) is up nearly 22% on the day. (Paradigm Mastermind Group members got an email this morning urging them to sell half their position for 191% gains.)
Not surprisingly, Washington&rsquo;s competition with Beijing looms large: &ldquo;China&rsquo;s ability to turn off the supply of these critical minerals would have a direct, palpable and adverse effect on U.S. ability to field the kind of high-tech capabilities that we&rsquo;re going to need for any kind of strategic competition or conflict,&rdquo; says Stephanie Barna of the uber-connected D.C. law firm Covington &amp; Burling.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, the biggest of the big banks wants a piece of the &ldquo;Birthright&rdquo; action.
&ldquo;It has become painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing &mdash; all of which are essential for our national security,&rdquo; says a statement from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
And with that, JPM has launched a 10-year initiative &ldquo;to help finance and take direct stakes in companies it considers crucial to U.S. interests,&rdquo; reports CNBC.
JPM is targeting four sectors&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Defense and aerospace</li>
<li>&lsquo;Frontier&rsquo; technologies such as AI and quantum computing</li>
<li>Energy technology including batteries</li>
<li>Supply chains and advanced manufacturing.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Within those four sectors are 27 industries where JPM plans to offer consulting, financing and investments &mdash; everything from robotics to space launches to nuclear power.
&ldquo;This new initiative,&rdquo; says Dimon, &ldquo;includes efforts like ensuring reliable access to lifesaving medicines and critical minerals, defending our nation, building energy systems to meet AI-driven demand and advancing technologies like semiconductors and data centers.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Moving On
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Mr. Market is cautiously moving on from Friday&rsquo;s trade freak-out.
When we left you on Friday, Donald Trump rattled markets with a lengthy social media rant in response to China&rsquo;s latest restrictions on the exports of rare earth elements.
He threatened a &ldquo;massive increase&rdquo; in tariffs on China and suggested he might call off his meeting later this month with China&rsquo;s President Xi. The S&amp;P 500 ended the day down 2.7%, the biggest one-day drop since April.
After the market closed, Trump upped the ante &mdash; threatening 100% tariffs on imports from China. In the finance corners of social media, the chatter was about a &ldquo;limit down&rdquo; day when the market opened today.
But then yesterday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1lTgkOwbqYpBIe1Gfe5pVy/160af029eb0c5ec78ef8dc16ebf9979f/trump_tweet101225.png" alt="Trump Tweet" />
The Trump-Xi meeting? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says it&rsquo;s still on.
As we write this morning, the S&amp;P 500 has recovered nearly half of Friday&rsquo;s losses &mdash; up 1.2% to 6,631. The Dow&rsquo;s gain is weaker, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s stronger.
Hats off to Paradigm&rsquo;s Microcap Millionaire readers: Chris Cimorelli urged them this morning to take 247% gains on Energy Fuels Inc. (UUUU). Not bad for six months!
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Why Trump&rsquo;s change of heart? Who knows &mdash; maybe it&rsquo;s the latest trade figures from China.
China&rsquo;s September exports denominated in dollars rose 8.3% year-over-year, according to China&rsquo;s customs agency. That&rsquo;s despite a 27% drop in exports to the United States.
China seems to be getting along just fine even as its trade with the United States plummets.
And why not? By one estimate, China&rsquo;s exports to America make up 1.5% of China&rsquo;s annual economic output. If all those exports went away tomorrow, China&rsquo;s economy could likely withstand the hit.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Silver Squeeze
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile in the precious metals space, a silver squeeze is underway &mdash; propelling the white metal&rsquo;s spot price nearly $2 higher to a record $51.86.
&ldquo;Benchmark prices in London have soared to near-unprecedented levels over New York, prompting some traders to book cargo slots on transatlantic flights for silver bars,&rdquo; reports Bloomberg &mdash; &ldquo;an expensive mode of transport typically reserved for gold &mdash; to profit off the massive premiums in London.
&ldquo;Silver lease rates &mdash; which represent the annualized cost of borrowing metal in the London market &mdash; surged to more than 30% on a one-month basis on Friday, creating eye-watering costs for those looking to roll over short positions. Lease rates for gold and palladium also tightened, signaling a broadening pull on London&rsquo;s bullion reserves, following a rush to ship metal to New York earlier this year.&rdquo;
Not to be overlooked, gold is also in record territory &mdash; up $75 to $4,091.
It&rsquo;s a different story for digital nondollar assets. Bitcoin took a dive Friday, coinciding with Trump&rsquo;s China trade threats &mdash; from $122,000 to under $107,000 in a matter of hours. At last check, the flagship crypto has recovered to $114,494. Much of the rest of the crypto space moved in sympathy, Ethereum now $4,119.
Crude is bouncing from Friday&rsquo;s steep sell-off &mdash; up $1.10 as we write to $60 on the nose.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Eurocrats Gone Wild
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />What is it about European busybody bureaucrats and their aversion to long hot showers?
&ldquo;Europeans are at risk of cold showers after materials critical to hot water tanks were not included on an EU list of authorized substances,&rdquo; says the Financial Times &mdash; &ldquo;which was revised as part of the bloc&rsquo;s sprawling environmental legislation.&rdquo;
A while back, the EU wrote up new rules for drinking water &mdash; listing a raft of substances considered safe for household use. Not included on that list are the elements hafnium and zirconium.
Problem: Hafnium and zirconium are wonderfully heat-resistant metals, which makes them essential to hot water storage tanks. And it seems the rules apply to bathing water as much as drinking water.
&ldquo;[Hafnium] is absolutely safe to use&rdquo; for bathing, says Paolo Falcioni of the appliance trade group APPLiA. He warns that if the rules aren&rsquo;t adjusted, about 90% of hot water tanks would no longer be marketable in the EU.
Yes, manufacturers could substitute steel or copper &mdash; but only at four or five times the cost.
The EU is washing its hands of the matter (so to speak), saying it&rsquo;s up to individual member states to raise an objection.
The industry counters by saying that going country-by-country &ldquo;would take too long and they would be forced to make costly changes to their production lines in the interim,&rdquo; according to the FT.
Then again&hellip; maybe the Eurocrats are doing it on purpose?
When European leaders swore off Russian natural gas after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Dutch government implored citizens to limit their showers to five minutes and Germany&rsquo;s economy minister claimed he&rsquo;d &ldquo;drastically reduced&rdquo; his shower time.
On the other hand&hellip; as the saying goes, never attribute to malice what you could otherwise attribute to incompetence.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: The Socialist Playbook
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />One more reader email in the aftermath of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/jimmy-kimmel-and-rush-limbaugh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Jimmy Kimmel incident</a>&hellip;
&ldquo;As an endangered libertarian,&rdquo; writes one of our longtimers, &ldquo;I understand and agree that the tit-for-tat FCC infringement on free speech is only going to degrade rights for all of us, left and right (libertarians don&rsquo;t count because there are only about three of us that survive). The Patriot Act opened the door to this in my opinion.
&ldquo;I do understand the &lsquo;karma is a bitch&rsquo; rationale after the Obama and Biden years were unprecedented in so many dystopian ways from turning the IRS and FBI against conservative groups to arresting people for praying in silence outside an abortion clinic on a public sidewalk. For brevity&rsquo;s sake I&rsquo;ll end there, but the examples are as chilling as they are many.
&ldquo;As a libertarian, though, I wonder if we haven&rsquo;t reached the point where we are about to lose our republic (if you can keep it) to communist and socialist movements that have already taken over our universities and much of the media.
&ldquo;Saul Alinsky&rsquo;s book Rules for Radicals reflected the communist/socialist playbook well with its core tenet of defeating opponents from within by forcing them to adhere to their own laws.
&ldquo;The signs are everywhere that we are slipping into socialism with many &lsquo;stars&rsquo; of the Democratic Party openly praising it. New York is about to elect a socialist.
&ldquo;Numerous assassinations, and attempts, that aim to shut down free speech are also ominous signs of how far our society has fallen. Even our strongest allies like the U.K. seem to be embracing socialist tendencies and are arresting those who say things they don&rsquo;t agree with. I guess that&rsquo;s more civilized than murdering them.
&ldquo;Do we allow our republic to fall without putting up a fight?
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll assume that all but the extremes of both parties would agree we fight to keep our republic and our rights that are left, but that leaves the all-important question of how.
&ldquo;I have been with you since the days of Agora. I value the vestiges of that heritage that remain and hope for honest discourse on this idea in that tradition.&rdquo;
Dave responds: I dunno. I guess at the moment I&rsquo;m more concerned about Oracle&rsquo;s Larry Ellison heralding the arrival of a surveillance state where &ldquo;citizens will be on their best behavior because we&rsquo;re constantly recording everything that&rsquo;s going on.&rdquo;
And this is the guy who will soon control TikTok, the social media platform used by half of all Americans.
Michael Shellenberger &mdash; the man who coined the term <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-censorship-industrial-complex" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&ldquo;censorship-industrial complex&rdquo;</a> &mdash; took note of Ellison&rsquo;s remarks last month. And he followed them to their logical conclusion.
&ldquo;And after the government combines your personal, banking and voting data under a single digital ID, it will add social media and vaccine information&hellip; The Censorship Industrial Complex was dress rehearsal for digital ID.&rdquo;
Note well: Ellison is another one of these opportunistic Democrat-turned Trumper types. His influence now is such that a recent Wired article described him as a &ldquo;shadow president.&rdquo;
Maybe I&rsquo;m barking up the wrong tree &mdash; but right now I&rsquo;m more concerned about all of that than I am about the Alinsky, Gramsci, Cloward-and-Piven stuff. Admittedly, your mileage may vary&hellip;

fmf-hero-101325

DOD: $1B "Birthright" Metals Spree

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Path to $10K Gold
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The frenzy stage for gold has not yet begun,&rdquo; Jim Rickards declared yesterday before a crowd of 700-plus at the 2025 Paradigm Shift Summit in Nashville.
Precious metals were the object of much buzz among the crowd. Many in the audience found their attention divided &mdash; watching the speakers and taking notes, but at the same time checking their phones to monitor the wild action in gold and silver.
Gold exceeded $4,050 as attendees took their seats&hellip; only to watch it sink more than $100 by midafternoon. (This morning it&rsquo;s back to $3,997.)
Silver pushed past its 1980 and 2011 records, exceeding $51 briefly &mdash; only to plunge below $49. (Now it&rsquo;s approaching $50 again. Life comes at you fast.)
Jim&rsquo;s talk covered much territory &mdash; tariffs and the rumored Mar-a-Lago Accord among other topics &mdash; but the crowd was rapt as he laid out eight factors that will drive gold prices much higher from present levels.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> One of those factors we&rsquo;ll spotlight here: It&rsquo;s part mathematics, part psychology. Jim&rsquo;s laid it out to his readership before, but it&rsquo;s worth a revisit today.
&ldquo;Investors naturally focus on dollar gains in the price of gold,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;When gold goes from $1,000 per ounce to $2,000 per ounce, investors cheer the $1,000 gain. The same is true when gold goes from $2,000 per ounce to $3,000 per ounce. Again, investors pat themselves on the back for another $1,000 per ounce gain.
&ldquo;What investors don&rsquo;t realize (at least initially) is that each $1,000 per ounce gain is easier than the one before.&rdquo;
It comes down to a psychological phenomenon called anchoring. &ldquo;The investor anchors on the amount $1,000 as a fixed gain and treats each such gain the same,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;In pure dollars, they are the same. You make $1,000 per ounce as each benchmark is passed.&rdquo;
But the percentage gain is progressively smaller. Gold moving from $1,000 to $2,000 is a 100% gain &mdash; but gold moving from $3,000 to $4,000 is only a 33% gain.
&ldquo;Because each $1,000 per ounce gain begins from a higher level, the percentage gain associated with each dollar gain is less. The increase from $1,000 to $2,000 per ounce is a heavy lift. The increase from $9,000 to $10,000 per ounce is not much more than a good month&rdquo; &mdash; that is, an 11% jump.
Between the math and the psychology, &ldquo;this combination could propel gold prices to the $10,000 per ounce level in far less time than most analysts believe.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Spooky Synchronicity
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />There was a spooky synchronicity to our energy-and-mining specialist Byron King&rsquo;s talk yesterday.
For weeks he&rsquo;d been planning to discuss the shortages of minerals that are essential in the eyes of Pentagon planners.
Then came the news we mentioned off the top of yesterday&rsquo;s 5 Bullets: The Chinese government imposed steep new export controls on rare-earth elements &mdash; used in everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
Rare earths are the one natural resource China doesn&rsquo;t have to import &mdash; and as Byron showed in this presentation slide, China&rsquo;s dominance of the rare-earth space is &ldquo;uncontested.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3As1HiiOtifPsVbygrTpye/8749cd2d29923887a2939d2622d922ce/REE.png" alt="REE" width="540px" />
As yesterday wore on, the scope of China&rsquo;s new export restrictions came into sharp focus: Any company around the world that wants to sell a product with Chinese rare earths &mdash; even if those rare earths make up as little as 0.1% of the product&rsquo;s value &mdash; must get permission from Beijing.
That&rsquo;s going to be mighty tough sledding for the makers of semiconductors &mdash; which is probably what Beijing had in mind, given Washington&rsquo;s export controls on chips.
Turnabout may or may not be fair play, but turnabout it is.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On this day after Byron&rsquo;s talk, China&rsquo;s rare-earth restrictions have gotten Donald Trump&rsquo;s back up &mdash; and Mr. Market is freaking out.
On social media, Trump threatened a &ldquo;massive increase&rdquo; in tariffs on Chinese goods &mdash; with the current tariff truce between Washington and Beijing set to expire one month from today.
China is &ldquo;becoming very hostile,&rdquo; he posted. &ldquo;I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so.&rdquo;
With that, a stock market that began the day mildly in the green has sunk deep into the red. At last check the S&amp;P 500 is down 1.25% to 6,650. The Dow&rsquo;s losses are narrower, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s steeper. (In contrast, the rare-earth names are ripping higher once again &mdash; USA Rare Earth, for instance, up 18%.)
The market&rsquo;s chill has spread into crude oil as well: A barrel of West Texas Intermediate is down over two bucks to $59.27 &mdash; a five-month low.
Crypto is catching cold, too &mdash; Bitcoin sinking toward $119,000 and Ethereum approaching $4,100.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The big economic number of the day isn&rsquo;t helping matters.
The University of Michigan consumer-sentiment index is still in the dumps at 55.0, far below its over-70 levels at the start of the year.
Often this number is simply a reflection of how well the stock market is doing &mdash; and it&rsquo;s been doing very well until today &mdash; but that&rsquo;s not the case with this month&rsquo;s report. &ldquo;Pocketbook issues like high prices and weakening job prospects remain at the forefront of consumers&rsquo; minds,&rdquo; says the Michigan survey team.
<blockquote>➢ Just in: The Bureau of Labor Statistics plans to release the September inflation numbers on Oct. 24, &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; notwithstanding. Maybe someone read our mention yesterday that without those numbers, the Social Security Administration can&rsquo;t set next year&rsquo;s cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients.</blockquote>
Today&rsquo;s sell-off was bound to happen sooner or later. The market had gone up too far, too fast. Our hedge fund veteran Enrique Abeyta would tell you that Trump&rsquo;s pique with China isn&rsquo;t the reason for today&rsquo;s drop, it&rsquo;s the excuse.
And with that in mind, we move on to Enrique&rsquo;s presentation in Nashville&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Party Like It&rsquo;s 1999
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Be aggressive,&rdquo; our trading pro Enrique Abeyta told the crowd yesterday about the AI bubble. &ldquo;This could last weeks, months, even years.&rdquo;
Late last year, Enrique earned some notoriety for forecasting that Nvidia would lose $1 trillion in market cap &mdash; and in short order, too.
Sure enough, that&rsquo;s exactly what happened between early January and early March &mdash; with more than half of that plunge coming on one day, Jan. 27 amid the freakout over the Chinese AI engine DeepSeek. (Remember that?)
As 2025 wore on, he began warning about an overbuild in AI infrastructure &mdash; an explosion of hardware capacity that will come into use one day, but not right away. He likened it to the overbuild of fiber-optic cable for the internet during the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But while the story is destined to end in tears, the end is not nigh. Enrique says it&rsquo;s time to party like it&rsquo;s 1999.
Here in October 2025, NVDA has rebounded to a record share price and a stupendous $4.75 trillion market cap. As the old Wall Street saying goes, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t fight the tape.&rdquo;
True to his trader&rsquo;s mentality, Enrique urged the crowd to ride the wave instead. Go for growth and not value: The market is chockablock with companies that can 10X their earnings.
And stay disciplined: Avoid big losses because they&rsquo;ll make you gun-shy, depriving yourself of the chance at big gains. Here&rsquo;s an eye-opening table from his slide deck&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3JKcV2EHO9Ahiglk7MYLbM/00c30ec72b122bb74f59662f6653e777/Loss.png" alt="loss" width="540px" />
He shared several names for the audience&rsquo;s consideration. We&rsquo;ll share one of them here: Coinbase. COIN is sure to prosper as digital assets rally alongside all things tech.
And his overarching guidance: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not how much you make, it&rsquo;s how much you keep. Plan your trade and trade your plan.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />&ldquo;But Wait, There&rsquo;s More&hellip;&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Really, we&rsquo;ve only scratched the surface with yesterday&rsquo;s presentations at the Paradigm Shift Summit.
Of course our AI and crypto authority James Altucher was a huge draw &mdash; slamming the banks for their outrageous fees and invasions of privacy. For him, the advent of stablecoins can&rsquo;t come soon enough. (And it will.)
&ldquo;Mr. 10X,&rdquo; Chris Cimorelli, laid out three picks with the potential to make 10 times your money over the next 12 months.
The sui generis Mason Sexton described an eerie recurring 36-year pattern in both the markets and global events. As he sees it, 2026 could turn out to be much like 1882 &mdash; a &ldquo;new Gilded Age.&rdquo;
Today&rsquo;s presentations promise to be just as compelling &mdash; capped off with a reprise of our 2018 &ldquo;Bitcoin versus gold&rdquo; debate. Once more Jim Rickards will take up the cause of the Midas metal while James Altucher makes the case for Bitcoin.
Today&rsquo;s crowd is smaller &mdash; because Day 2 of the Summit is limited to an inner circle of our readership.
They&rsquo;re an unusual group, really. They took advantage of a customer service loophole that allows them to access some of our most premium research for free. This loophole allows them access to a host of perks &mdash; including attendance at today&rsquo;s Summit sessions.

Curious? <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2485726">Give this a look</a>.
[Editor&rsquo;s note: If you already subscribe to at least one of our high-end publications, <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2485726">this offer will be of special interest to you</a>.]

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Gold Rally, Gold Reserves, IRS Enforcement
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Gold&rsquo;s run-up sure has been years in the making!&rdquo; a reader affirms after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/gold-its-not-all-about-trump">Wednesday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;The central banks&rsquo; furious pace of buying gold is one more milepost in a long trend.
&ldquo;We are 11-plus decades into this dollar debasement scheme known as the &lsquo;Federal Reserve Note.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s amazing that it has taken so long to start blinking red on every level, but here we are.
&ldquo;Escalating debt, prices and spending &mdash; as well as big gold/silver corrections &mdash; are baked into fiat currency regimes from the beginning. The inflection points are just a matter of time.
&ldquo;From a technical analysis viewpoint, the current dollar prices of precious metals may have blown through reasonable levels. But considering how badly they have been manipulated, are they really overextended?
&ldquo;Or are they deeply undervalued assets that are finally doing an accounting as they seek their level?
&ldquo;BTW I don&rsquo;t think you get enough credit for the job you have done in past issues of The 5 explaining price suppression of gold and silver. Kudos for that.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thank you. It was Jim Rickards who opened my eyes to it. I haven&rsquo;t really had occasion to revisit the issue for a long time. <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2019/08/22/deathbed-confession-precious-metals/">The most recent definitive take in our archives</a> goes back six years now &mdash; but it does stand the test of time.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Dave, you and others have reported on more than a few occasions that countries around the globe have looked upon the U.S. government's freezing Russian assets with such dismay as to dump American paper in favor of gold and other securities,&rdquo; writes one of our regulars.
&ldquo;What evidence can you cite to support this? Are there any allies or central banks on record as having stated such?
&ldquo;(And please do not conflate our massive federal debt with your forthcoming explanation, for I believe that is the real reason.)
&ldquo;Still a 5 Fan.&rdquo;
Dave: No, there&rsquo;s no documented instance of, say, the finance minister of East Borkistan telling a press conference, &ldquo;These people in Washington are bats*** crazy with their economic warfare measures. We&rsquo;re dumping our Treasuries and getting more gold.&rdquo;
Then again, if that were to happen, East Borkistan would immediately become a target for regime change, or at least one of those &ldquo;color-coded revolutions,&rdquo; no? Better to keep it all on the QT.
This much is certain: The sudden leap in accumulation of central bank gold reserves occurred in the spring and summer of 2022 after Washington ramped up the sanctions on Russia to an unprecedented degree.
Admittedly, Jim Rickards and I (and many others outside the Paradigm stable) are operating from inference. But I daresay it&rsquo;s informed inference.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On the subject of relaxed IRS enforcement during the &ldquo;partial government shutdown,&rdquo; we heard from an expat reader&hellip;
&ldquo;Dave, you wrote: &lsquo;Then again&hellip; how much of an enforcement mechanism do they have at the moment?&rsquo;
&ldquo;The key words in this phrase are &lsquo;at the moment.&rsquo; Almost certainly, if you fail to file your quarterly payment, nothing will happen immediately, but as the agents return to the office and begin to catch up on all that happened while they were out, you will get a notice, and not only will they demand what they consider their due, but will demand penalties on top of that. Not worth it.&rdquo;
Dave: No doubt. Ditto for accidentally lowballing one&rsquo;s quarterly estimated taxes. Hopefully your wise counsel is not derived from personal experience!
Have a good weekend,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

10k-path

"The frenzy stage for gold has not yet begun,” Jim Rickards declared yesterday before a crowd of 700-plus at the 2025 Paradigm Shift Summit in Nashville.

The Path to $10K Gold

image (139)

China imports almost everything it needs to keep its modern economy running, from crude oil to iron ore — with one crucial exception.

Chinese Squeeze Play

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Gold: It&rsquo;s Not All About Trump
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The spot price of gold has followed gold futures over $4,000 for the first time. To hear the mainstream tell it, it&rsquo;s all about Trumpy-Trump-Trump and how he ruined everything.
It&rsquo;s loud and proud in today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal &mdash; front page, above the fold&hellip;
<blockquote>&hellip; gold has rocketed higher due in part to anxiety that President Trump could upend the postwar economic order underpinned by the U.S. dollar&hellip;</blockquote>
<blockquote>Trump&rsquo;s attempt to reorder global trade has buoyed prices and upended growth forecasts. White House pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates is threatening the independence of one of the financial system&rsquo;s bulwarks.</blockquote>
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The international media get a little closer to the truth.
&ldquo;Trump&rsquo;s tariffs and battles against the Federal Reserve are not the only factors driving gold&rsquo;s continued upward trajectory,&rdquo; says an article at Al Jazeera&rsquo;s website.
For starters, Japan&rsquo;s ruling party has a new leader: Sanae Takaichi is on track to become the country&rsquo;s first woman prime minister. She&rsquo;s campaigning on a platform of big deficits, tax cuts and &ldquo;stimulus&rdquo; payments to households.
&ldquo;Her victory,&rdquo; Al Jazeera&rsquo;s Erin Hale writes, &ldquo;upset markets as the yen &mdash; another &lsquo;safe haven asset&rsquo; for some investors &mdash; dropped to a 13-month low on Tuesday, according to the Reuters news agency. Gold, it appears, became a go-to alternative.&rdquo;
And then there&rsquo;s the turmoil in France &mdash; where a never-ending budget crisis has taken down yet another prime minister, this one after only 26 days. France will likely face nonstop turmoil until President Emmanuel Macron&rsquo;s second term is up &mdash; and that&rsquo;s still 18 months away.
France and Germany form the twin pillars of the euro currency &mdash; and Germany&rsquo;s economy has been in the tank for nearly three years. So the euro is no viable alternative to the dollar: Gold wins again.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But this isn&rsquo;t just a 2025 story: Gold&rsquo;s run-up has been years in the making.
Looking back, the logical starting point is February 2022 &mdash; when Russia invaded Ukraine and the Biden administration responded with unprecedented sanctions, freezing the dollar-based assets of Russia&rsquo;s central bank.
At that moment, every government on less-than-friendly terms with Washington came to the same realization: If it can happen to the Russians, it can happen to us too.
It is no coincidence that central bank accumulation of gold leaped to record levels in 2022. The furious pace of buying has continued ever since.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/57G6GhLFwBlKlfMOguqmG1/180019b15f70f77a8bbc258f1f0b31a9/2.6_5Bullets_Chart.png" alt="Central Banks Back Up the Truck" width="540px" />
That&rsquo;s because gold has a unique advantage over other assets, as our Jim Rickards has reminded readers for years: &ldquo;Gold is a physical nondigital asset that cannot be stolen, frozen or seized provided it is in safe storage.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> And the gold story is about more than just Washington&rsquo;s adversaries looking out for their own interests since 2022.
Going into the election last year&hellip; your editor ruffled a lot of partisan feathers by saying that no matter who won, the trajectory would be similar: More war, more dollar debasement.
Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris uttered the term &ldquo;federal spending&rdquo; once during their debate last year.
The burst of spending during the last year of the Trump 45 administration and the first year of the Biden administration was not a one-time response to COVID, after which we went back to &ldquo;normal.&rdquo;
Instead, federal spending was put onto a permanently higher trajectory&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1hahbVFl8Sccb7v2vMMRvg/87c0453ed1fdd25cc06ddefaad7eab7c/5_Bullets_Chart_091124.png" alt="No going back to normal" width="540px" />
The explosion of spending and debt since 2020 resulted in vicious consumer price inflation &mdash; the kind unseen since the 1970s.
The mild inflation we experienced during the 2010s is now a distant memory. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/declare-your-independence-from-inflation">And as we can&rsquo;t remind you often enough</a>, once inflation sails past 5% &mdash; as it did in 2022 &mdash; it typically takes a decade to get back to &ldquo;normal&rdquo; 2% inflation.
Gold experienced a stupendous rally during the inflationary 1970s &mdash; starting at $35 an ounce in 1971, climaxing in a blow-off top over $800 in January 1980.
As the saying goes, history never repeats exactly &mdash; but it does tend to rhyme. That&rsquo;s why projections of a $15,000 gold price and even <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-usd27-533-gold-solution">Jim Rickards&rsquo; math-driven scenario of $27,533</a> are not only plausible but probable.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> All that said&hellip; in the short term, &ldquo;silver and gold have blown through any and all reasonable levels,&rdquo; our Greg Guenthner advises his Trading Desk readers. &ldquo;To say the metals are &lsquo;overextended&rsquo; is a massive understatement.
&ldquo;So we have a situation where silver and gold are desperately in need of a pullback. On the other hand, the inflation and debasement narratives are only growing.
&ldquo;In my mind, both can be true.
&ldquo;I think we'll see gold and silver higher in the longer term. I don't think it&rsquo;s the blow-off top yet! But from a trading perspective, I need to wait for a better entry. Some form of pullback needs to materialize to allow me to get involved.&rdquo;
But today is not the day. Checking our screens, the spot price of gold has shot up $58 to another record of $4,041. And silver is up an eye-popping $1.47 to $49.22. The 2011 high of $50 is within reach.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Stocks: A November (and December) to Remember
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As for the stock market, &ldquo;There is an extremely high probability that we finish 2025 strong,&rdquo; says our hedge fund veteran Enrique Abeyta.
Yes, stocks are stretched right now and he expects some near-term turbulence&hellip; but history points to strength during the fourth quarter. Check out these charts from Bespoke Investment Group, going back 80 years&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7p8wFGVwLRC9sS9Ihpm2Td/1573c2193a4b6358630dd3676f765b35/PostWW2.png" alt="post wwii" width="540px" />
&ldquo;You can see that since World War II, the S&amp;P 500 has been up almost double the average for all quarters and positive almost 80% of the time,&rdquo; says Enrique. &ldquo;Those are both strong returns and a high probability of a positive outcome.&rdquo;
Another fact to chew on: Whenever the stock market notches a new all-time high in October &mdash; as it&rsquo;s done a handful of times this month &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 ends the fourth quarter in the green 90% of the time.
And the average jump for the quarter is almost 5%. That&rsquo;s according to figures from Carson Investment Research going back to 1950.
What&rsquo;s behind the pattern? Consider this: &ldquo;Most professional money managers are compensated based on their performance at the end of the calendar year,&rdquo; Enrique says.
&ldquo;So they will do everything they can to see the market go higher by year-end.
&ldquo;If a money manager is flat (or down) going into year-end, then they probably won&rsquo;t be aggressive. A money manager who&rsquo;s up double digits, on the other hand, will buy every dip.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Which seems to be what&rsquo;s going on today.
After a down day yesterday the S&amp;P 500 is up over half a percent as we write &mdash; in record territory once more at 6,753. The Dow&rsquo;s gain is weaker, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s stronger.
Among the big movers is AST SpaceMobile &mdash; up 10.2% on news that it will partner with Verizon to provide wireless service via satellite. ASTS is a workhorse holding in James Altucher&rsquo;s entry-level newsletter Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network &mdash; now up 426% from its original recommendation in January 2021.
<blockquote>➢ Economic number of note: Curiously, the &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; is not affecting the weekly oil inventory figures from the Energy Department. This week&rsquo;s numbers show a drawdown in gasoline and distillates (diesel, fuel oil). With that, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up over a buck to $62.85.</blockquote>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Follow-Up: Swimming Naked With First Brands
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> If there&rsquo;s a potential catalyst for short-term turbulence in the stock market, it&rsquo;s the continuing fallout from the bankruptcy of the auto parts maker First Brands.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/wall-streets-check-engine-light">Since we waved the caution flag a week ago today</a>, large players in the finance sector have started disclosing their exposure to First Brands.
The Swiss banking giant UBS was up first. Funds operated by UBS are swimming naked to the tune of $500 million. If The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, much of that exposure is to customers that owe money to First Brands.
Then today Jefferies Financial Group disclosed that funds run by its Point Bonita Capital unit are owed an even bigger sum &mdash; $715 million &mdash; from companies that bought First Brands parts. (The news has sent JEF shares down 1.3% as we write.)
Both companies promise they&rsquo;ll act to enforce investors&rsquo; rights. But considering that First Brands evidently pledged the same invoices more than once as collateral on the company&rsquo;s borrowed money&hellip; that could prove to be an uphill climb.
Look for more confessions in the days to come. One of them might be enough to make the stock market stumble a bit.
Wide-scale systemic risk, you ask? Probably not in the near term &mdash; but Jim Rickards&rsquo; top analyst Dan Amoss is on the lookout for any tremors that might herald a major earthquake.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />A reader passes along today&rsquo;s edition of government-shutdown memeage &mdash; which serves as a valuable reality check.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3Z1pYw4oLclwIXzntkuBfH/57d1ede5cedc9e654c72f7764859ba4f/GovernmentShutdown.png" alt="Government Shutdown" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" /> Mailbag: Kimmel, Again
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I had to give you a dislike on your email,&rdquo; says a late-arriving note from a reader after your editor took on the Disney-Jimmy Kimmel story.
&ldquo;The point of the FCC getting after Jimmy Kimmel is for his lying accusation regarding Charlie Kirk's assassination.
&ldquo;It's one thing to disparage MAGA, but to directly accuse MAGA of shooting Charlie Kirk should not be supported on FCC taxpayer-funded airwaves. Assassination is a serious criminal offense and to accuse a people of that would equate to Hitler blaming the Jews for Germany's problems; therefore it's OK to final solution them.
&ldquo;I think [FCC chair Brendan] Carr was addressing the blasphemous LIE and false accusation. How do you think Mr Trump is winning in court? He's winning because they LIED and defamed him.&nbsp;
&ldquo;It used to be that a news organisation had to tell the truth. Now lies and false accusations are considered free speech AND normal. Those men that you cited should know better.&rdquo;
Dave responds: The issue is not whether Jimmy Kimmel lied. The issue is whether government has a role as the arbiter of truth. The Founders would be appalled at the suggestion it does.
But don&rsquo;t take it from me. Take it from conservative talk-radio host Clay Travis. He partners every weekday on the airwaves with Buck Sexton, editor of the Paradigm newsletter Money &amp; Power.
Mr. Travis says it was wrong a few years ago when Disney cancelled Roseanne Barr&rsquo;s ABC sitcom and when Disney dumped Gina Carano from the streaming series The Mandalorian &mdash; and he says it was wrong for Disney to suspend Kimmel.
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like the concept &mdash; as someone who talks for a living &mdash; of any person in any creative industry losing their job for any one thing they say &mdash; Roseanne, Gina or Jimmy,&rdquo; Travis tweeted last month. &ldquo;I think we all lose in creative spaces that sometimes require pushing the speech envelope and taking risks when that standard is applied, right, left or independent politically.
&ldquo;But you can&rsquo;t only notice the issue when it happens to people on the same side of your own politics. Especially since the left created the cancel culture universe &mdash; which I&rsquo;ve consistently opposed my entire career &mdash; and now is upset because they are being held to the standards they created&hellip;
&ldquo;This will probably make me the only person on social media to defend Roseanne, Gina and Jimmy. As someone who people have tried to cancel more than almost anyone in media for having &lsquo;unpopular&rsquo; opinions, I&rsquo;m proud of that.
&ldquo;If your principle shifts based on who has power, you actually have no principles.&rdquo;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets
P.S. Mr. Travis and Mr. Sexton are scheduled to appear together tomorrow afternoon during the 2025 Paradigm Shift Summit in Nashville. And Buck Sexton is set to join our rollicking Whiskey Bar roundtable.
Look for highlights from tomorrow&rsquo;s sessions during Friday&rsquo;s 5 Bullets.

Trump-10-8

The spot price of gold has followed gold futures over $4,000 for the first time. To hear the mainstream tell it, it’s all about Trump… 

Gold: It’s Not All About Trump

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Alaska Doctrine
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Another day, another acquisition for Uncle Sam&rsquo;s growing portfolio of natural resources companies.
&ldquo;The U.S. said it will take a 10% stake in Canadian minerals explorer Trilogy Metals Inc. as part of a $35.6 million investment to secure critical energy and mining projects in Alaska,&rdquo; Bloomberg reported late yesterday.
In making the announcement, Donald Trump reversed the Biden administration&rsquo;s decision to nix a highway project called Ambler Road. Construction of Ambler Road will now give Trilogy access to vast deposits of copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.
If the last of those two sound vaguely familiar, it&rsquo;s because China banned U.S.-bound exports of those metals last year. They&rsquo;re essential for high-end computer chips.
As we write this morning, shares of Trilogy (TMQ) are up 212% from yesterday&rsquo;s close. And a select group of Paradigm readers is very happy.
Our resident geologist Byron King talked up Trilogy last April during a livestream event from Jekyll Island, Georgia. He was certain the Trump administration would approve Ambler Road.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The Trilogy announcement comes only two business days after the rare-earth firm USA Rare Earth (USAR) said it was talking with the Trump administration &mdash; presumably about a similar arrangement.
As mentioned yesterday, members of the Paradigm Mastermind Group are benefiting from that one &mdash; with USAR shares up 89% in two months.
The deals are coming fast and furious since the first one three months ago &mdash; when the Pentagon announced it was taking a 15% stake in the rare-earth company MP Materials. Our readers reaped gains from that one, too.
Credit goes first and foremost to our macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards &mdash; who said in January the Trump administration intends to open up huge swaths of federally owned land to energy and mineral development. Potential value of the resources under that land &mdash; $150 trillion. The &ldquo;American Birthright,&rdquo; Jim called it.
In April, we directed your attention here in these 5 Bullets to a new wrinkle in the Birthright story: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the U.S. government was looking to invest in mining companies &mdash; as he put it, &ldquo;equity investment in each of these companies that&rsquo;s taking on China in critical minerals.&rdquo;
If you&rsquo;ve missed out on any of these opportunities, don&rsquo;t beat yourself up. There&rsquo;s more where these came from.

<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> That&rsquo;s because as 2025 starts drawing to a close, Jim Rickards says the &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; agenda is moving into Phase II.
During Phase II, the companies whose share prices will benefit most are the ones you couldn&rsquo;t possibly guess at.
That&rsquo;s because they don&rsquo;t extract oil and gas from the ground. Nor do they mine metals.
But under federal law, they could be only days away from becoming the most important stocks in the mining industry &mdash; signing contracts that could net up to $10 million a day.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2484433">And as Jim shows you when you follow this link</a>, there&rsquo;s historical precedent at work &mdash; unleashing the potential to make 200X your money in the next three years. If you missed out on Phase I (or even if you didn&rsquo;t), <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2484433">now&rsquo;s the time to get the scoop on Phase II</a>.

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Gold $4K
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />A day after Bitcoin set a record price, gold futures broke over $4,000 for the first time this morning &mdash; in what looks like a rush into non-dollar assets.
&ldquo;People are looking to short the dollar, but they are not quite sure what currency to purchase,&rdquo; says Nicky Shiels of the trading firm and precious metals refinery MKS Pamp. &ldquo;That uncertainty leads you straight to gold,&rdquo; she tells the Financial Times.
Even with the gold price up 50% this year, it&rsquo;s only now that institutional investors are tiptoeing toward gold as a long-term hold &mdash; &ldquo;for the first time in a long time&rdquo; as the head of metals research at Bank of America describes it.
At the same time, the big investment bank Morgan Stanley says it&rsquo;s time to rethink the traditional portfolio allocation of 60% stocks and 40% bonds &mdash; suggesting that bonds be cut to 20% with the other 20% devoted to the Midas metal.
&ldquo;Gold looks a bit more attractive as a diversifier to long equity position than bonds do,&rdquo; is how Maya Bhandari from Neuberger Berman puts it to the FT.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> All that said, big winners &ldquo;get overbought and are subject to pullbacks,&rdquo; says Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta.
On the &ldquo;daily feed&rdquo; section of the Paradigm mobile app, Enrique says the gold price is now 25% above its 200-day moving average. &ldquo;Historically a premium above 20% is short-lived.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;ve been six times when gold has traded 20% or more above the 200 DMA. &ldquo;The average drawdown is 15% over 42 days.&rdquo;
That would send gold down to about $3,370 &mdash; which, we&rsquo;ll point out, was an all-time high only six months ago!
&ldquo;Maybe this time is different?&rdquo; Enrique muses. &ldquo;Earlier this year when gold was over 20% above the 200 DMA, it fell 7.2% in 17 days.&rdquo; A similar move from current levels would bring gold back to $3,675 &mdash; which was a record only last month!
While gold futures crossed $4,000 this morning, the spot price has yet to do the same. At last check, it&rsquo;s at $3,980. Meanwhile, silver has slipped back below $48 for the moment.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As for the stock market, it&rsquo;s taking a rest after a string of all-time closing highs.
The S&amp;P 500 is down about a third of a percent as we write &mdash; 6,715. The Dow is holding up better while the Nasdaq is down over a half percent.
Among the big movers today is the parent firm of the New York Stock Exchange, Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange. ICE shares leaped 4.6% in early trade after news the company
plans to invest $2 billion in the predictions site Polymarket.
As the mainstream sees it, ICE&rsquo;s investment could help Polymarket return to the United States. It exited the U.S. market in 2022 under pressure from the Biden administration.
But from our perch, here&rsquo;s what makes this move look singularly savvy: If stock trading is moving in the direction of the blockchain and tokenization, who&rsquo;s going to need exchanges and brokerages? Diversifying into the predictions market assures ICE&rsquo;s long-term survival.
<blockquote>➢ Congratulations are in order once again for Altucher's True Alpha Yesterday they collected 569% gains playing call options on a quantum computing firm. Sorry, this premium advisory is currently closed to new readers, but we&rsquo;ll let you know as soon as it reopens.</blockquote>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Uptober: Mainstream Finance Embraces Crypto
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Uptober is upon us,&rdquo; says Paradigm crypto analyst Chris Campbell.
Bitcoin&rsquo;s price has risen in October for 10 of the last 11 years &mdash; logging an average gain just shy of 20%. Even as the price is pulling back from yesterday&rsquo;s record &mdash; $121,824 as we check our screens &mdash; it&rsquo;s up 6.7% so far this October.
&ldquo;Crypto ETF flows are on fire,&rdquo; Chris says. &ldquo;Last week&rsquo;s numbers: $3.24 billion into Bitcoin, $1.3 billion into Ethereum, $707 million into Solana.&rdquo;
Just as with gold, institutional acceptance is growing. Chris draws a sharp contrast between the evolving views of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon&hellip; and JPM analysts elbow-deep in research.
<blockquote>2020 (analyst): &ldquo;Bitcoin passed its &lsquo;first real stress test.' Higher.&rdquo;</blockquote>
<blockquote>2021 (Dimon): "Bitcoin is worthless..."</blockquote>
<blockquote>2021 (analyst): &ldquo;$146K is possible in coming years&hellip;&rdquo;</blockquote>
<blockquote>2023 (Dimon): "The only use case for it is crime..."</blockquote>
<blockquote>2023 (analyst): &ldquo;Store of value thesis will see BTC price double post-halving.&rdquo;</blockquote>
<blockquote>2025 May (Dimon): "It's not digital gold, but I guess we&rsquo;ll let you buy it. Go at it.&rdquo;</blockquote>
<blockquote>Last week (analyst): &ldquo;Bitcoin could reach $165K based on gold&rsquo;s record run.&rdquo;</blockquote>
As Chris sums up, &ldquo;JPMorgan&rsquo;s Bitcoin stance is basically: Dad hates it, but Mom started a secret stash in the attic years ago.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />More institutional acceptance: Standard &amp; Poor&rsquo;s just announced it&rsquo;s launching a new crypto index.
The S&amp;P Digital Markets 50 will comprise 15 cryptocurrencies and 35 stocks tied to crypto.
&ldquo;Historically,&rdquo; Chris observes, &ldquo;once assets become benchmarked, institutional inflows multiply. (ETFs give capital access. Indexes give capital permission.)&rdquo;
No, S&amp;P has not yet said which cryptos and stocks will go into the index. But Chris will engage in some informed speculation &mdash; and suss out some of the biggest potential winners &mdash; in today&rsquo;s issue of our sister e-letter Altucher Confidential. Watch your inbox.
[Editor&rsquo;s note: As with Enrique&rsquo;s gold observations, Chris&rsquo; crypto insights today come courtesy of the &ldquo;daily feed&rdquo; section of the Paradigm Press mobile app. The app is ready for download right now from both Apple&rsquo;s App Store and Google&rsquo;s Play Store. Enjoy!]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief, Shutdown Edition
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s a double dose of shutdown memory today&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3jBrGAEpbZSVZvFksBkPZj/74807ce964ee0dac010be5cf6c3c55d8/working.png" alt="we are going to stop working" width="540px" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3SVf9Me66XdBAyhDNWxe52/47615df24bd1cda6d2a6574c81f8fea3/shutdown.png" alt="shutdown" width="540px" />
Well yes, but TSA employees are working without pay until the shutdown is over, at which time they&rsquo;ll get back pay.
So far there are few reports of TSA employees calling in &ldquo;sick&rdquo;&hellip; but it&rsquo;s a different story for air traffic controllers.
&ldquo;Twelve Federal Aviation Administration facilities saw staffing shortages Monday night,&rdquo; says CNN. &ldquo;The control towers in Burbank, Phoenix and Denver had so-called &lsquo;staffing triggers&rsquo; reported in the public FAA operations plan. Other facilities that handle air traffic around airports in Newark, New Jersey; Jacksonville, Florida; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and Indianapolis also were short staffed.&rdquo;
This is no small consideration for the hundreds of our readers making their way to Nashville for the 2025 Paradigm Shift Summit starting Thursday.
To say nothing of the Paradigm editors who expect to appear on stage! Fingers crossed&hellip;
(If you&rsquo;re not joining our team in Nashville, look for conference highlights here in 5 Bullets starting Friday.)
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Maxwell Apartment, Dollar Coins
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;OMG, do large companies no longer do any research in their marketing?&rdquo; a reader writes in response to our item about Maxwell House downsizing to &ldquo;Maxwell Apartment.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Or do these marketing departments just charge forward with major rebrandings, come hell or high water? Has wokeness overtaken sane thinking?
&ldquo;Remember Cracker Barrel, you dummies&hellip;&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On the subject of dollar coins, broached <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/americas-jv-with-xi">in yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>, a member of our Omega Wealth Circle writes&hellip;
&ldquo;I live in Ecuador, which dollarized its economy in 2000, after they blew up their local currency.
&ldquo;Here it is largely a cash economy, and dollar coins are in wide circulation, to the point that rarely do you see a $1 bill, and whenever anyone gets one, they try to spend it ASAP.
&ldquo;I have (just checked) four dollar coins in my pocket right now, and several rolls more on the shelf as these are spent. Even down here, where a dollar goes further than in the U.S., it just feels right that it is pocket change and I only reach for my wallet for bills if $5 and up.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Depending on who you want to believe, the reason dollar coins haven&rsquo;t caught on stateside is that $1 bills remain in circulation.
Which I suppose makes sense. When I lived in Buffalo during the late 1990s I&rsquo;d visit Ontario every so often to go hiking. Canada did away with $1 bills a few years earlier. I rather enjoyed the $1 coin (the &ldquo;loonie&rdquo;) and the $2 coin (the &ldquo;toonie&rdquo;).
Of course, that was a time when electronic payments were less common&hellip; and fiat currency went further than it does now!
(Oh, and you didn&rsquo;t need a passport to cross between Canada and the United States, either&hellip;)
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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